Live music in the time of pandemic

Anyone who knows me well knows that going to concerts is one of my most favorite things to do. Perhaps my favorite thing of all if the concert is a really really good one.

I haven't been to a concert in more than four months. The last one I attended was on February 27 - We Were Promised Jetpacks at the Grog Shop, a show I won tickets to from a local college radio station. It was a fun show but not one that would have stood out to me... if not for, well, you know.

Certainly not being able to go to concerts is not as bad as becoming horribly ill or dying from a deadly pandemic, but it is most definitely something missing in my life. Something missing in a lot of people's lives. Especially the people, the musicians and the venue owners and employees, who make their living by bringing the amazing thing that is live music into other people's lives. That's a toll of the pandemic that doesn't get as much attention as a lot of other aspects but shouldn't be forgotten.

Thank goodness for live stream concerts. Although nothing lives up to the magical experience of seeing a great show in person, they have done a lot to fill the void for the music obsessed like me.

I'll always remember the first really good quarantine show I saw. Hard to believe that it was three months ago now. That seems simultaneously too long and too short - in many ways time seems to have lost all meaning during this strange age. In the early days of quarantine, all the live stream shows were basically just someone in their bedroom or living room singing and playing an acoustic guitar with often dodgy video and/or audio quality. And these were nice to have, what with the sudden and glaring absence of real live music or other outside-the-home entertainment options in all our lives. But they were such a pale imitation.

Weakened Friends changed that with their "Where The Heart Is" digital concert on April 4.

Do you remember what life was like back in early April? How everything was just a constant stream of fear and horror and panic and anxiety? And yes, perhaps in some ways it's still like that, in a resurgent way these last couple of weeks. But now we've at least had time to adapt to this strange new reality. We at least have a better understanding of what's going on. Back then it was all so novel and so confusing and so scary. Anything that could provide some small measure of escape was almost miraculous.

When Weakened Friends announced their show, I was really excited. The Portland, Maine-based three piece rock band are one of my favorites I've discovered in the last few years, but not only that, they hold a special place in my heart. Their show at Mahall's last November was the first that my girlfriend Megan and I ever attended together, and for a couple who loves music as much as we both do, that's a big deal! We had only known each other for a little more than a month at the time, and it was a fantastic show and a memorable evening for both of us.

So I was definitely looking forward to the digital concert, but I had little idea what was in store - it blew away any expectations I might have had. Weakened Friends decided that if they were going to do a quarantine show, they were going to go all out. They weren't going to do a standard bedroom acoustic stream. They weren't going to skimp on the production values. The three members of the band conveniently all live in a house together. So they rigged the house up with a professional quality sound system. They created a setup with guitarist/lead vocalist Sonia Sturino in a bedroom, bassist/backing vocalist Annie Hoffman in the kitchen, and drummer Adam Hand in the living room, each fully plugged in, each captured by their own video feed. And they played a full on, no holds barred rock show with professional quality video and sound from three separate rooms inside their own house. I'd never seen anything like it before and haven't seen anything like it since.

Oh, and there was a cat cam!

I remember sitting at my kitchen table, watching the show on my laptop, earbuds in, texting Megan who was watching at her house. I commented that I thought watching this show was something I'd always remember, and three months later I'm sure that I was right.

What a strange time that was. What a strange time it still is, but the strangeness was heightened then. For fifty minutes full of energy and emotion and hooks and riffs and impassioned vocals, Weakened Friends gave us a much needed respite from the insanity and horror of late March/early April 2020.

It really was something special. Better than many shows I've seen in person. Every visible vibration of the kitchen cam was like a little bit of healing rock energy transmitted through the Internet and into my apartment.

The show can still be watched today. I rewatched it recently and it was as good as I remembered and also a very interesting time capsule of those early days of the pandemic. None of us had any solid idea back then what was going to happen. I doubt, though, that many of us honestly expected that three months later the situation in the U.S. would be getting even worse at the same time that most other countries would be getting the pandemic under much better control. But I guess it's not really surprising now that it's all unfolded before us.

I remember back then thinking that July was the earliest I thought we might get to go back to attending real concerts in person. Nope. Sigh.

But back to the Weakened Friends digital concert. If you like the band and haven't seen this concert yet, what are you waiting for? Go watch it now! If you don't know the band but like rock music (kind of '90s alt rock influenced with rawly emotional vocals - Sturino does some remarkable things with her voice that really set the band apart from the pack) and want to see something unique and amazing, check it out too. They are such a great band and I'm grateful their music came into my life.

"Where The Heart Is" was the first really standout quarantine concert, and I think it's still the most memorable, definitely the most unique, and probably still the best. But there have been some other really good ones in the months since.

Megan and I have really enjoyed watching performances from other artists we love like Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, and Phoebe Bridgers. Sometimes we watch together in person, sometimes we watch "virtually together." Either way it's a great form of connection both between the two of us and between the musicians and all their fans. This technology we have that allows us to have these experiences really is a marvelous thing and something we shouldn't take for granted. Think about what life must have been like during the 1918 flu pandemic when there were so many fewer entertainment options available in one's home and there was no way to have a face to face interaction with a person in a different location.

The most recent memorable live stream show and the first to rival Weakened Friends in my book came from another artist who many of you already know also holds a very special place in my heart, Andrew Bird. Megan and I were in fact supposed to be traveling to Colorado recently to see him perform at Red Rocks. His first real live stream concert was obviously not a true replacement for the transcendent experience that show surely would have been, but it was at the very least a good consolation prize.

I really liked the sentiments Bird expressed in his email announcing the concert:

As a rule I prefer to play before I speak, but these are strange times. I’m doing my first live stream concert on Sunday, June the 28th, the day I was supposed to headline the Hollywood Bowl. This will be at Old Style, my favorite guitar shop, a slightly more intimate venue. There will be an audience of Gibsons, Guilds and Gretchs. I assure you, we are working hard to make it of the highest quality and worthy of your time and hard-earned money. Of course it’s no substitute for the communal ritual of attending a show with your fellow citizens, but every time a new medium emerges I only consider doing it when I think there’s something new and interesting that can come of it.

Doing these daily songs on Instagram has been a godsend for me. It still feels like performance, rough and scrappy and true to how I’m feeling that morning. Plowing through my catalogue daily is doing something to my playing that I think will come through in this concert. It also helps me feel some purpose. It helps me feel connected with you in a time when this sacred ritual we share cannot happen.

The feeling of connection, concerts as a sacred ritual... it really gets to the heart of the matter of how I feel about all this.

Bird set up for his solo performance in the Old Style Guitar Shop with a captive audience of guitars wearing hats and wigs.

It was very whimsical and charming in a very Andrew Bird way. He had some other fun touches like piping in audience noise and reacting to it as if it was real. He has always been such a unique individual and performer in a way that I find incredibly endearing. And he is also incredibly talented. Of course, if you've experienced any of his wonderful performances, or if you've heard me talk about them before, you know this.

The first time I saw him live I was so in awe of his wizardry with using looping pedals to build up intricate songs out of different violin and guitar parts all by himself in a live setting. In more recent years most of his live shows have moved to more of a full band experience. They're still amazing but in a different way. This solo show was therefore a nice throwback.

He also made sure the show was worth the price of "admission" by playing a full length set clocking in at around an hour and forty-five minutes, easily the longest quarantine live stream show I've seen. Maybe that sounds like a long time to watch someone play a concert over the Internet... but I was mesmerized the whole way through. I really just adore this man and his musical talents.

The setlist was a great mix of songs from throughout Bird's lengthy and prolific career. I was especially thrilled that he included "Why," by request. It's a song that Bird just so elevates live, drawing out its length and engaging in a dialogue with himself (about excessive passivity in a relationship) in a manner that no one but Bird, with all his endearing quirkiness, could pull off so well.

What a much needed respite from the horrors of our current reality.

I can only imagine how emotionally powerful it will be when Megan and I get to once more see artists like Weakened Friends, Angel Olsen, and Andrew Bird live and in person. Whenever that will be. For now I'm so glad we have these streaming shows to bring the joy and wonder of live music into our homes and into our socially distanced lives.

This isn't a novel observation, but I really hope that people will remember from this whole experience of isolation just how much value the arts - music and other forms - bring to our lives. And will realize that the artists who create all these great things should be supported financially. I think that musician is one of the most important jobs in the world, and it's sadly one where the odds of making a good living are horribly stacked against you. And that was before the pandemic, which is making it all so much worse.

There are so many people who think nothing of spending ten dollars on a drink at a bar or on a fast food lunch many times in just the course of a single week, but won't spend ten dollars to buy an album that so much hard work and passion went into making. I wish that would change.

If you miss concerts, check out some of these live stream shows. More and more are being added to the calendar as the prospects of musicians going on tour in the not-too-distant future in this country depressingly grow dimmer and dimmer. And support the National Independent Venue Association. It's such an important cause.

One day we'll get to go to real concerts again and it will be such an amazing day but until then let's be grateful for the gift of music and let's share it with each other and let's appreciate and support all the wonderful musicians who bring that gift to us.

Sing that song you sang long ago

March 2006 was a very eventful month in my life.

The first weekend of the month found me in Chicago for the conference championship indoor track meet, the last time in my life that I'd represent my school in a race (this was my first year of grad school and during that year I had one season of indoor track eligibility to use but had used up my four years of cross country and outdoor track during undergrad). A week after being in Chicago, I took a trip to LA (for the first time) to see two concerts by my favorite band Ozma (for the first time) in Hollywood. Those were my favorite concerts I'd ever been to and that trip ranked among the best experiences of my life. The trip to LA was followed by a stay with my family in Columbus during my spring break.

Later that month, I saw Andrew Bird for the first time in a concert at my school. It didn't occur to me until recently that seeing Andrew Bird for the first time was also among the exciting things I did in March 2006 and that there was a strange significance to this.

Circumstances conspired in a weird and wonderful way such that December 2019 found me almost reliving that momentous month of March 2006. To recap, in March 2006 I went to Chicago, a week later I went on an amazing trip to LA to see two Ozma concerts that were my favorite shows I'd ever attended, after LA I went to Columbus to visit my family, and I saw an Andrew Bird concert. And in December 2019? I went to Chicago to see an Andrew Bird concert, a week later I went on an amazing trip to LA to see two Ozma concerts that are now my favorite shows I've ever attended, and after LA I went to Columbus to see my family.

Another very important thing happened in March 2006, which is that during that visit to Columbus, I met Cara in person. Quite a month, and not a bad one to sort of relive.

The Andrew Bird concert I attended in Chicago on the 12th of last month was one that was just steeped with emotion and meaning for me. I've seen Andrew Bird a lot of times over the years, more than any other non-local artist except for Okkervil River, but this one was extra special. Bird has created a tradition of playing "Gezelligheid" concerts each December at the 4th Presbyterian Church in his hometown of Chicago. Gezelligheid (says Wikipedia) "is a Dutch word which, depending on context, can be translated as 'conviviality', 'coziness', 'fun'. It is often used to describe a social and relaxed situation. It can also indicate belonging, time spent with loved ones, catching up with an old friend or just the general togetherness that gives people a warm feeling." Going to one of the Chicago shows this year was something I decided I had to do as soon as the shows were announced. There were two times in the past when I had tickets for one of Bird's Gezelligheid shows and ended up not going. The first time was in 2013. Cara had been diagnosed with lung cancer in August. Andrew Bird was her favorite musician, and I wanted her to be able to have this really great experience so I bought tickets for us to see the show. She was really excited about it. Then her health took a serious downturn in late November and she ended up being in no condition to make the trip so we had to cancel our plans. Unfortunately Bird did not do Gezelligheid shows in 2014; Cara's health was good enough that year in December that we could have gone and I'm sure we would have.

Bird has also, in addition to the Chicago shows, done Gezelligheid shows in certain other cities in certain years. In 2017 there were shows in Nashville and I bought a pair of tickets. Then my would-have-been date for the concert abruptly broke up with me, so again I ended up not going. It's funny, that was so painful at the time, but now I can look back on it and laugh. Yeah, I still have scars from the experience, and yeah, I still miss her daughter although with nothing like the intensity I once did, but recent events in my life have really driven home to me how we were not actually such an ideal match for each other as it seemed at the time.

Cara, of course, was very much on my mind during the Chicago trip and especially during the concert.

I had been to Chicago many times before for various reasons but never for a solo trip. It was actually really fun exploring the city by myself, visiting familiar spots from previous trips and checking out a number of new ones including some really cool restaurants and bars. And the Andrew Bird concert? It was just breathtaking.

The morning of the show I headed out on foot into the city from my hotel, which by a happy coincidence (as I booked it via Hotwire and only knew the approximate location until after booking) was right next door to the 4th Presbyterian Church. I noticed the church was open to the public during the day and I wandered inside and was immediately awestruck.

It's a beautiful building, and I thrilled at seeing the setup for Bird's show including the familiar spinning horn speakers. I also took advantage of the opportunity to scope out the seating and realized that in the balcony section for which I had a ticket, some of the seats would have obstructed views, so as the seating was first come first served within the section for which one had a ticket, I decided I'd better arrive at the venue early that evening.

It was a beautiful day and I had a great time wandering the city, highlighted especially be my going ice skating for the first time in probably around fifteen years, and by a visit to the Chicago Cultural Center (originally the first Chicago Public Library building), which I decided to enter on a whim thinking that it looked interesting and then discovered was one of the most spectacular buildings in terms of interior architecture and decor that I've ever visited, including two stained glass rotundas.

After an early dinner, I arrived outside the church at 6 pm, an hour before doors opened and two hours before show time, to find I was about tenth in line. Arriving early was a wise choice. The line became quite long over the course of the next hour. I was able to secure first choice of seats in the balcony section, and found myself with a perfect view of the stage.

(There were signs prohibiting picture taking so no pictures from during the show. The guy next to me blatantly disregarded the signs. Come on, dude.)

Madison Cunningham, a young SoCal-based singer-songwriter, opened the night with a very nice solo set. Andrew Bird came next. And his performance was magical.

In some ways I was transported back to that very first time I had seen him play, in 2006. I specifically remember at that show being in awe of Bird's wizardry with looping pedals to overlay violin and other melodies. Over the years since, Bird's shows have transitioned more into full band performances and the looping wizardry has taken a backseat. And I do love those full band shows as well. But there's something even more magical about Andrew Bird performing solo.

And the church setting, of course, added to the magic. Much better than a small room crowded with college students, many of them talking.

I also remember that in the early years of me seeing Bird live, he would play a xylophone on some of the songs, and I always found it charming how there seemed to be this sharp contrast between the methodical and intently focused way he would strike the bars of the xylophone to produce simple melodies and the seemingly effortless way he would play stunningly beautiful and far more complex violin parts. Recent Bird shows I've seen have not included the xylophone. Here it was back, and just like I remembered from before, and I smiled as I recalled those memories.

It was just a delightful show. A very intimate atmosphere, and indeed, a cozy one. Different from any concert I've attended before, and in a wonderful way. The set included five songs from Bird's brilliant latest release My Finest Work Yet, which I saw performed in its entirety at a great concert in September, but all the songs as well as a number of other great selections spanning most of Bird's career were presented as new (to me) arrangements that took full advantage of the intimate setting and stripped down instrumentation. Madison Cunningham joined Bird to play guitar and sing on most of the songs he played, but there was still plenty of looping wizardry, and her voice was a wonderful counterpart - especially on a beautiful rendition of "Left Handed Kisses," the album version of which features Fiona Apple in a duet with Bird.

Song after song I was just in awe at the beautiful performance I was witnessing. I also found myself thinking, over and over, Cara would love this so much. She really, really would have. And it's very sad that she never got to go to one of these Gezelligheid shows, but I'm so glad I finally got to go myself, and I'm also so glad that Andrew Bird's music continues to help me stay connected with Cara.

The next day I took full advantage of my remaining time in Chicago. Among other things, I (for the first time) rode the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, partly inspired by its mention in Sufjan Stevens' song "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!"

I also, for my last stop before heading home, went for another trip down memory lane in Chinatown and ate at Lao Sze Chuan restaurant, which I was introduced to by a Chinese colleague when in town for a conference in 2009, and which I also went to with Cara and our friends Jordan and Ruth in 2013.

Chicago was great. Andrew Bird was amazing. In a typical month for me, the Chicago trip definitely would have been the highlight.

But then the next week I went to Los Angeles. And let me tell you, the trip to Los Angeles... it was just something else. It was an astonishingly sublime experience, one of the best of my entire life. I seriously get emotional just thinking about it. It may have been the best trip I've taken since my honeymoon, and I really mean that.

As I had done in March 2006, I flew out to Los Angeles by myself with tickets for two Ozma concerts on consecutive nights. That trip in 2006 was the first time I had ever done something like that by myself. It was an amazing experience. Life-changing, even. I had become obsessed with Ozma the previous year and was very sad that they had broken up and I would apparently never get to see them live, so when they announced they were getting back together I decided I had to go to the reunion shows despite them being on the other side of the country. It was oh so worth the trip. And at the time, Cara and I had started to become online friends, we'd started to connect over music, and she had gotten into Ozma because of me. So I was also looking forward to meeting her in person and telling her about seeing Ozma live.

After we met in person, in an already planned get together just days after my return from LA, it wasn't long before we were IMing for hours almost every day. The final race of my collegiate running career having happened a week before that LA trip, and my meeting Cara in person happening in the week after... it could perhaps be said that that marked the point in time when the most primary focus of my life switched from running to Cara.

In August of that year, still "just friends," the two of us took our first trip together, to Washington DC, to see Ozma (opening for the Rentals, another band we liked, but Ozma were our reason for making the trip). So Ozma's music is inextricably tied to my friendship and relationship with Cara and to that period of time in my life when she and I met and became the closest of friends with each other.

When Ozma announced last year that they would be playing a twentieth anniversary show for their first and most iconic album Rock and Roll Part Three, the album that I have undoubtedly listened to more than any other album in my life, it was a very easy decision - once more, I had to make that trip to LA.

In 2006, I took a very minimalist approach to my trip. I flew into LA on the day of the first show, took the Metro to Hollywood, checked into my very basic hotel for a two-night stay, and got around entirely on foot (walking as well as running) before taking the Metro back to the airport the morning after the second show. This time around I decided to make the most of the vacation and stayed for four nights. I also rented a car, although I do admire my past self's sole reliance on public transit and my own legs for transportation. (And I did, to my credit, do even more walking on this more recent trip!) I got to do a lot more in the LA area this time, including some amazing waffles...

a fun mountain bike ride near Santa Monica and walk out to the pier...

and a great time hanging out with my cousin Chelsea and seeing her wonderful bluegrass band the Salty Suites the day after that of the second Ozma show.

I also enjoyed revisiting familiar sights in the Hollywood area from my previous trip there on the last day of this visit, including spectacular views at Runyon Canyon.

Really, just about everything on the trip was wonderful, but the main focus of the trip was the Ozma concerts (they added the Thursday 12/19 show after the Friday 12/20 show quickly sold out), and the Ozma concerts.... Oh. My. God. The Ozma concerts!

The Andrew Bird concert really hit me emotionally but I was fully expecting it to and its emotional impact was about what I predicted. The Ozma concerts, I knew they'd be a big deal for me, but I didn't really realize ahead of time just how big a deal. You know how when you're a kid you get so, so excited the day before Christmas? Well, it was fitting that these shows were so close to Christmas, because I started to feel that same way in the day leading up to the first show.

I saw Ozma three times in 2006 - the two in Hollywood in March, and the one in DC with Cara in August. Then Cara and I saw them once more, in July 2007 in Columbus (we were actually supposed to see them on back-to-back nights in Cleveland and Columbus but the Cleveland show was cancelled when their van broke down). That was the last time I'd seen them. It had been more than twelve years. A band that was so integral to that very impactful time in my life, and then, although never ceasing to be one of my favorite bands, over the years kind of faded out of my day-to-day existence. So much has happened to me in between 2007 and now. Cara moved to Cleveland, we moved in together, we got engaged, we got married, she got diagnosed with lung cancer, we had numerous amazing adventures through it all, and then she died, and all sorts of interesting things have happened since then, and through it all, Ozma's music remained at the foundation of my and Cara's relationship, even if in a way that I no longer thought about nearly as often. Somewhere along the way Okkervil River surpassed Ozma as my favorite band. And Okkervil River are probably the most important band in my life overall. But Ozma will always be the most important band to my meeting, getting to know, becoming best friends with, and falling in love with Cara. And whereas I've seen Okkervil River numerous times throughout all those years, all of the things that have happened in that long, long time since I'd last seen Ozma meant that the emotional impact of seeing Ozma in concert was an order of magnitude greater than the already great emotional impact of my long ago previous Ozma concert experiences.

As these concerts were for the twentieth anniversary of Rock and Roll Part Three, they featured performances of that entire album, along with a second set featuring a sort of greatest hits selection from other albums. So I'm going to take a minute or a few to just gush over what a great album Rock and Roll Part Three is.

There are certain albums - most notably Ozma's R&RP3, Okkervil River's Down the River of Golden Dreams, and Typhoon's White Lighter - that I have such a strong emotional connection to that there's no way I could ever attempt an even remotely objective evaluation of them (not that there's any such thing as an objective evaluation of a work of art, but I think you get what I mean), and there's probably no way anyone who didn't have a strong emotional tie to those albums could love them as much as I do, but I still think that Ozma accomplished an undeniably remarkable thing with R&RP3. The members of the band were teenagers when they made the album. Teenagers! How many classic albums were made by teenagers? And when I listen to the album I marvel at how well it works as an album, not just a collection of songs. How well sequenced it is, how well the songs flow from one to the next, the way that certain themes pop up at multiple points in the album in an almost symphonic way.

The album kicks off with "Domino Effect" and a catchy melody first played on keyboard which is then joined by electric guitar on the same melody, a signature Ozma sound, followed by a breakdown section, and then the lyrics "Chances last a finite time/in the warm July night time/Every care that keeps you from your feet/is a care that carries your defeat." Those simple words spoke to me back in 2006 and still speak to me today. Life is finite. We only get so many chances to make the most of it. So if you have the opportunity, go to California to see a concert by one of your favorite bands. You'll be glad you did. And take a chance on asking out that girl/guy you like.

Every care that keeps you from your feet is a care that carries your defeat.

"Domino Effect" ends with repeating bass notes seguing directly into second track "Apple Trees." I wrote this in 2006:

When I heard the lyrics "An apple pie, the number pi, I studied you in math class, and did all my work but never got your digits" in "Apple Trees" I was pretty much hooked.

Ozma, especially on their first album, very much made "geek rock," a term also applied to Weezer, who heavily influenced Ozma and helped them break out by taking them on tour. Listening to this album at times you could almost think you were listening to Weezer. I love Weezer's first two albums but I think Ozma took what Weezer were doing and made it even better. (Ozma, unlike Weezer, also had the good sense to not keep releasing album after album after album after having run out of good songs.) I'm very much a geek, so this aspect of their music very much appealed to me. I also have a thing for puns and wordplay, so, yeah.

The next two tracks "Shootingstars" and "Natalie Portman" dial up the emotional intensity. And "Natalie Portman" is the best example of how, while it is remarkable that an album this good was made by teenagers, it's also an album that requires having been made by teenagers to be this good. The very heartfelt song about having a crush on Natalie Portman (pretty relatable to me when I first heard it) would be intensely creepy if it had been written by a fully adult man (looking your way, Rivers Cuomo, for some of the songs you've written over the years...) but is endearing and funny and moving all at once having been written by a high schooler. (I do wonder whether Daniel Brummel of Ozma feels funny singing the song now that he's in his late thirties.)

"The Ups and Downs" and "If I Only Had a Heart," a pair of fun, catchy rockers, provide a respite from the emotional intensity before we get to the heart of the album: "Baseball" into "Rocks" into "Battlescars." "Baseball" is just, as far as I'm concerned, a masterpiece. It's so poignant and the way it taps into nostalgic feelings to tie memories of baseball to memories of young love is so good and the vocals just soar. I really have a thing for songs that evoke feelings of nostalgia. For some reason, I always have, but I do even more so now than I did prior to everything that happened with Cara. This is one of the best such songs that I know. And it's actually a theme that runs through a number of songs on the album, which is so fascinating to me because how were teenagers, still so young, able to evoke those feelings of yearning for the past so powerfully? And I guess that even when we are teenagers, we already have great nostalgia for our still younger days, even though it's easy to forget this as adults.

"Rocks" is a perfect break between the twin emotional climaxes of "Baseball" and "Battlescars" - two minutes of super fast, super fun, super danceable rock music. And then "Battlescars" is another soaring and emotionally intense number, starting out quiet with an evocative keyboard intro from Star Wick and eventually building toward crashing guitar chords and co-frontmen Brummel and Ryen Slegr repeatedly trading off vocals and competing to rip your heart out with the raw emotions in their voices. And in this track the quasi-symphonic elements of the album really come in - the lyrics mention "shooting stars" ("Of all the shooting stars I knew/I never felt at ease with anyone but you" was a lyric I once told Cara made me think of her), a callback to track three on the album, and then after the song "Battlescars" ends, an acoustic (instrumental only) reprise of the melody from opening track "Domino Effect" provides a lovely little chance to catch your breath. Before the last acoustic guitar notes finish fading out, the driving "In Search of 1988" kicks in, and it's another one of those great nostalgic songs, with lyrics like "Turn on Mario and Luigi/Let's sit down, put our hands on the Ouija." And then just as track one of the album smoothly segued into track two via bass guitar, track ten smoothly segues into eleventh and final track "Last Dance," which dials down the tempo and is a perfect album closer. Lyrics "After the last dance/you lose your last chance" call back to the album's opening lyrics about chances lasting a finite time, to boot.

I don't know. I mean none of this is incredibly complicated. Maybe my gushing seems excessive if you aren't a passionate Ozma fan yourself. But it all just works so well! And all of the songs are so catchy! And they all just fit together perfectly! And teenagers did this!

I remember thinking many years ago that the five-song stretch from "Baseball" to "Last Dance" was easily my favorite part of any album ever. Thinking about it now, I think that I still feel that way. The album in its entirety was my all time favorite album for many years and then eventually I decided I no longer had a favorite album, I had several, with R&RP3 being one of them, but you know what? After these concerts, if I had to pick just one album as my favorite, I'm probably going back to Rock and Roll Part Three.

The concerts. I haven't even described the concerts yet! And they were so marvelous. I had never been to show venue the Troubadour before.

It's a legendary venue in West Hollywood that a number of famous musicians have played at over the years. (Incidentally, the venue for the 2006 shows, the Knitting Factory in Hollywood, no longer exists.) I was excited about the Troubadour based on what I'd heard, and I really loved it; it's definitely one of my favorite venues. It's very intimate and wherever you are inside, you'll be close to the stage and with a good view. On both nights I got there before doors opened and joined a lineup of excited fans outside, many of whom had also traveled from far away for this special event.

My excitement continued to build and build after I entered the venue. I was finally getting to see Ozma again! After all those years! Two other bands preceded Ozma on both nights. My favorite opener was Pushstart Wagon, the second opener on night one, another band who had been around the LA music scene for a long time and had not played in a while and who talked about having played with Ozma long, long ago.

After Pushstart Wagon left the stage, the time had almost arrived. And I really did feel like a little kid on Christmas morning. Enthusiastic cheers filled the venue as the members of Ozma descended a stairway and took the stage. And what came next was one of the most blissful almost two hour periods of my life.

When Ozma started in with the opening notes of the first song of their performance, I did not immediately recognize those notes, which surprised me. But before long I realized what they were doing, and I'm sure that a big goofy grin appeared on my face, because I loved it, and really, I thought, what other way would there be to begin a performance of Rock and Roll Part Three in its entirety?

They were playing a (modified and slowed down) version of their classic song "Iceland," which predates R&RP3 and appeared on the long out-of-print Audible Sounds of Trucks and Cars. It's a fantastic song. I'd never seen it performed live before. The reason it was a perfect show opener was that it contains the lyrics "We loved to listen to our Rock and Roll Part Three." (I don't know the story behind this - that is, were they already working on an album of that title when they wrote "Iceland," or did they make up the phrase (obviously a riff on Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2") for the song and then decide to use it as an album title? My guess, though, would be the former.) After the second and last time those words were sung (with me and many others in the audience enthusiastically shouting out the album title), Ozma abruptly transitioned out of "Iceland" and into the oh so familiar opening notes of "Domino Effect."

I already described the whole album so I won't go into a detailed recap of its live performance. But it was so, so good, everything I hoped for and more. I didn't realize just how deeply every note of that album was etched into my brain until I saw the whole thing performed live. The band's performances were stellar and they brought so much passion to the stage. I especially enjoyed Daniel Brummel's vocals - his voice has matured a lot since the album was originally recorded (it's funny, on the album a casual listener would likely have great difficulty telling apart the Brummel from the Slegr vocals, but their voices are much more distinct from each other now), and it's deeper and more powerful now, but he still hit the old high notes on songs like "Natalie Portman" and "Baseball" and it was a thrill to hear and see. In my prior Ozma concert experiences taken together I believe I had only gotten to see six of the eleven tracks on the album performed, so getting to see all the rest was amazing in and of itself, and the whole album straight through just had me in heaven. It was so utterly exhilarating. I sang along to every line of every song and I danced and jumped up and down and it felt like 2006 again but in a way that was deeper and rawer and even more meaningful. By the time we got to "Last Dance" it felt like the whole thing had just flown by.

One thing to note about the album performance: I had wondered how they'd handle the acoustic "Domino Effect" reprise that bridges "Battlescars" to "In Search of 1988." A friend of the band came out to join them with an acoustic guitar for that part, and he played it flawlessly. It was a really nice touch. And it was lovely when an impromptu audience sing-along started up partway through the instrumental acoustic interlude with those familiar words from "Domino Effect": "Sing that song you sang long ago..."

How perfectly fitting for this anniversary concert, almost twenty years after the initial release of the album (January 1, 2000), and how fitting for me, so many years after the last time I'd seen Ozma and so many years after the pivotal period of time in my life that their music soundtracked.

Ozma left the stage to thunderous applause, saying they'd be "back in 5," which turned out to be an overestimate. I didn't know what songs would make up their second set, but there were certainly some songs I'd guessed would probably show up, and most of my guesses were right. There were also some songs that weren't so expected and I was especially thrilled during their night one set with the inclusion of the beautiful "Continental Drift" with keyboardist Star Wick playing the flute. Some selections were very obvious - no Ozma concert would be complete without "Gameover" or "Korobeiniki" (a.k.a. the Tetris theme), and for good reason. Another song I knew would be coming was "Eponine" but I. Was. Not. Prepared. For how emotional that song would make me. Here's the thing about "Eponine." The last time I'd seen Ozma was in July 2007, in Columbus with Cara. Just over a month earlier I had adopted a little black kitten, the first pet I had ever had in my life. I had named her Eponine after the Ozma song (yes, the Ozma song title is a reference to the Les Miserables character). How could I ever have imagined back then that the next time I'd be seeing Ozma live would be over twelve years later and that Cara would be gone by then - but that adorable little kitten would have become my friend and companion through all those tumultuous years? I had no idea in 2007 that I could ever come to love a cat as much as I love Eponine.

Eponine, then and now

After the concert ended it hit me - that was probably the best concert I'd ever attended in my life. That was something I'd considered the Ozma reunion concerts after seeing them in 2006; then it changed to A Northern Chorus's farewell show in 2008 and that had been at the top of my list ever since so I think I was honestly expecting that it might always stay there. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I really did have a new best concert ever, and that was a very monumental thing. And I was very glad I got to do it all over again the next night!

Night one was the more emotionally impactful of the two because it was first. Night two ended up winning out for the amount of pure fun. I managed to get even closer to the stage, for one thing.

Also, the crowd was more into it on night two, I think both because it was a Friday night and because it was the show that had been announced first and quickly sold out so the audience had a higher percentage of truly die hard fans. The sing-alongs were more boisterous, there was more energy all around, and there was some great moshing action on songs that called for it such as "Rocks" and "Korobeiniki." It's hilarious to me that seeing Ozma in Hollywood at age 22 I had hightailed my way out of the area of the crowd where moshing was going on because I had never experienced anything like it and it was too rough, and now at age 36 I love having my body bounce around and collide with other people's to energetic rock music. I mean it makes me feel really alive! The night two non-R&RP3 portion of the set was also a somewhat better selection of songs than night one's in my opinion, although both were excellent. There was a lot of overlap between the two with the more obvious hits, which I didn't mind, but I was really pleased to hear "Immigration Song" (one of the only Ozma songs with Jose Galvez on lead vocals) and "You Know the Story"/"Landing of Yuri Gagarin" on night two, and most especially thrilled as well as very pleasantly surprised to get a rare performance of "Light Years Will Burn," which was super heavy and intense.

On both nights partway through the second Ozma set there was also a guest appearance by Matt Sharp, frontman of the Rentals and bassist for Weezer on their first two albums. As Cara and I saw the Rentals with Ozma in DC in 2006, this added to the throwback nature of the show for me. Sharp sang and Ozma played new Rentals song "Breaking and Breaking and Breaking" (fun but definitely my least favorite song from Ozma's sets) and old Rentals hit "Friends of P," the latter a rousing crowd sing-along. It made my day the other day when the Rentals released a video of the night two "Breaking and Breaking and Breaking" performance and I discovered that I appear in it numerous times, including a closeup of my screaming face that was captured by a camera held by Matt Sharp himself!

I think one of the reasons I loved seeing this so much was that it was a reminder that yes, that concert was a real thing that really happened and I was really there!

It was just all so amazing that it almost does feel like a dream, but it was very real, one of the realest things I've ever experienced, and I marvel at the fact that I did get to experience it. March 2006 was quite a month, one of the most eventful and important and memorable in my life, and now I'd have to say the same thing about December 2019.

P.S. The day after the second show I was very hoarse from all the singing along and screaming and cheering. It was very, very worth it.

In memory of Spot Night

My first year of grad school, which I started in the fall of 2005, may have been the year in which my life changed the most pivotally. That fall I got really into going to concerts, something I'd never really done before, and then during the spring semester I met and became friends with Cara. Obviously those were two things that would have enormous effects on the rest of my life. But Cara was actually not the first person I met that year of school who would have a big influence on my life.

As a first year graduate student, that fall I was assigned to be a teaching assistant for the first time. I was in charge of a lab section for one of the large undergrad biology lecture courses. I was terribly nervous about this, which to anyone who has known me for most of my life should not come as a surprise. Most of my duties were checking in with the students as they worked on the labs and then grading their lab reports, but I did have to give a brief talk about each lab in front of the assembled group of two dozen or so undergrads. When I was younger I got incredibly anxious about public speaking. (I'm glad to say that's no longer true.) So that TA assignment, looking back, was a pretty important life experience.

One of the most important parts of the experience, though, had nothing to do with my TA duties, but rather involved meeting and getting to know the undergraduate (a senior, I think) woman who was the assistant TA (yes, I notice the redundancy in that phrase) for my lab section, who I'll refer to as D. It's important to note that I was incredibly shy, especially about girls, and had never dated anyone. When I had crushes on girls the result was that I found them too intimidating to talk to. The biggest crush I'd had on a girl I actually knew somewhat well as a person, rather than as a pretty girl who I'd steal glances at from afar and never try to have a conversation with, was on someone who I knew online via a Star Wars message board and chatted with on ICQ in high school and never met in person.

Now, with D, I was put in a position where I had no choice but to talk, in person, to a cute girl. Of course, we had to go over our TA assignments with each other, but we also talked about other things. It turned out that she, like me, was very into indie music, and liked a lot of bands that I liked. A cute girl, who seemed to find me semi-interesting as a person, and who had a similar interest in music???

I quickly developed a very intense crush on D. Now, although I was not actually in any sort of position of authority over her, I realized that with her being my assistant TA, trying to date her would not have been a good idea. Also, as I was disappointed to learn at some point during our conversations, she had a boyfriend. I remember thinking about whether, if she hadn't had a boyfriend, I'd have tried to ask her out after the semester was over, which would have been extremely anxiety inducing, no doubt. But she did have a boyfriend so the point was moot. Nevertheless, I had a very intense crush.

And this brings me to where the title of this post comes from: Spot Night. Almost every week during the school year, on Wednesday night, the Spot, a student bar beneath the north side dining hall at Case, played host to a free concert. This had been a thing during my undergrad years as well, but during my undergrad years I wasn't much for going out and doing things, other than running cross country and track. I had been to two Spot Nights as an undergrad. One was a band called Roshambeaux, one member of which had been one of my high school cross country teammates. The other was Andrew WK, a show I went to because I thought it was freaking hilarious that Andrew WK was playing a show at the Spot, and yeah, it was a lot of fun. But those shows didn't spur in me an interest in going to more concerts in general.

During our conversations about music, D mentioned to me that she was one of the people on the undergraduate student-run University Program Board who were responsible for booking bands to play at Spot Night, and she told me that I should come check out some shows there. Naturally, I did, and naturally, at first my primary motivation for doing so was getting to see D. But it turned out that Spot Night was a totally awesome thing that would become a significant part of my life for many years to come.

I'm sure that with my growing interest in indie music and concert going, I'd eventually have gotten clued in to the awesomeness of Spot Night and started going even without the suggestion from D, but I don't know how long it would have been before that happened. (Also, one significant show that I definitely would not have gone to if not for an invite from D was the National and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Beachland that September; getting to see the National "before they got big" is a memory I'm glad to have.) I saw so many great shows at the Spot over the years but as it turned out, the two most significant both took place during the spring of 2006, as they were my introductions to two artists whose music would come to play huge roles in my and Cara's lives. Andrew Bird was already becoming a well known indie musician, although not nearly at the levels of fame he's since reached, and I remember his show at the Spot being perhaps the most crowded I've ever seen the place. He performed solo that night, and I was in awe at his looping, whistling, violin playing wizardry. I went away from that show a definite fan. A year later came Cara's introduction to Andrew Bird at a show we attended together in Columbus, and he became her most favorite musician of all. Would she and I still have gotten into Andrew Bird some other way if he hadn't played that show at the Spot? There's a good chance of it, but I'll never know for sure. A Northern Chorus, on the other hand, I very likely never would have heard of if they hadn't played a show at the Spot that spring. That show wasn't nearly as crowded as the Andrew Bird show, but to me it was even better. I remember standing in the middle of the floor in front of the stage and just basking in these waves of aural beauty that were washing over me - the swelling strings, the intricate guitar parts, the stirring vocals... I also remember after the show talking to D and telling her how much I'd liked it and that I kind of wanted to buy a CD but I thought $15 for a CD was a little steep, so I didn't buy one that night, which is very funny to me in retrospect because I now have a constant desire to shovel huge amounts of my disposable income into the pockets of musicians I like. A Northern Chorus became one of my very favorite bands, their album Bitter Hands Resign is in my all time top five, and their farewell show in June 2008 that Cara and I attended together remains my favorite show that I've ever seen.

I didn't see D much after the fall semester ended and not at all after that school year (and have no idea where she is now). I got over the very intense crush I'd had on her. In March I met Cara in person and rapidly became close friends with her although it wasn't until November that we started dating. In a way, looking back, it almost seems like my very intense crush on D, someone else I became friends with and made a connection with over a similar interest in music, was a sort of preview of the feelings I developed toward Cara.

Going to Spot Night on Wednesday nights was something I'd do most weeks during the school year for years to come. I lived in an apartment that was a short walk away so it became my little weekly ritual to head over to the Spot, grab some of their very cheap wings for dinner, and settle in to enjoy some music. I continued to attend Spot Nights all the way through my last year of grad school, which I finally completed in 2014. By the end, there, going to shows with audiences mostly made up of undergrads definitely made me feel my age, but hey, that didn't stop me from enjoying the music! It really is amazing looking back on all the bands that I got to see for free. Here's a list, just going off of memory, of bands that I saw at the Spot during grad school, ranging from local bands to some touring artists who would later go on to achieve massive fame, and including some artists I was already fans of as well as many who I got into as a result of their playing at the Spot (feel free to skip past if you don't feel like reading a long list of band names):

Andrew Bird, A Northern Chorus, Dreamend, Infinite Number of Sounds, The Never, The Acorn, Jupiter One, Ra Ra Riot, Goodmorning Valentine, To Be A High Powered Executive, Afternoon Naps, The Dreadful Yawns, The Commonwealth, The Morning Benders, MGMT, Passion Pit, St. Lucia, Lucius, Magic Man, The Colourist, Ben Kweller, The Watson Twins, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Tokyo Police Club, Head of Femur, Picastro, Cloud Nothings (a memorable show because a fire alarm went off in the middle of it), Tristen, Plushgun, Woods, Real Estate, Dr. Dog, Like Bells, Ha Ha Tonka... and I'm sure there are a lot I'm leaving out.

(MGMT and Passion Pit deserve special mention because, although not among my very most favorite Spot Nights, they are two bands who would go on to achieve huge levels of success, but when they played the Spot they were both very little known and didn't even have unusually large crowds for a Spot Night - the students on UPB who booked those shows were way ahead of the curve! Years later in 2013 Passion Pit returned to Case for the annual fall concert and played to a huge crowd at the Veale Convocation Center.)

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Spot Night was one of my very most favorite parts of being a Case student. In the years since I finished school I've learned that the weekly Spot Night shows have ceased to be a thing, which makes me sad. But I'm very grateful to have had those shows as part of my life for so many years and kudos to the students on UPB who did such a great job picking out and booking artists and helping create so many great memories!

Andrew Bird's Finest Work Yet

The release of a new album by Andrew Bird is something I have no doubt will always bring me mixed emotions.

Andrew Bird was Cara's favorite musician. Although I was listening to his music before she was, he became, of all the musicians we both loved, the one who was hers. Pretty much all the others we either liked about equally well, or I was more into than Cara was. Andrew Bird, to me, was an artist I really appreciated, especially his live performances, but he wasn't in my very top tier of favorites. Cara, on the other hand, developed something of an obsession. (I just loved the passion she had for his music, and how excited she would get about it! On a related note, I always enjoy revisiting her review of his April 2009 Cleveland show.)

So whenever Andrew Bird releases new music, I feel a deep sense of sadness that Cara is not here to experience that music. I want to listen to it with her, and talk about it with her, and most of all, to take in another of his unforgettable live performances with her. And it's not even just about wanting to do those things with her. I also just want Cara herself to be able to listen to Bird's new music because I know how much joy it would bring her. (But maybe, somewhere, she can hear it?) I think, honestly, that there are very few things in life that make me miss Cara more than listening to a new Andrew Bird album or attending one of his shows.

At the same time I feel that sadness, I also feel happy that I'm here to experience his music and that it is and always will be something that helps tie me to Cara.

Last month Bird released the cheekily titled My Finest Work Yet.

(A couple of months before the album release, a YouTube video with the audio of opening track "Sisyphus" was put online, and the first part of the video featured a series of laudatory quotes flashing onto the screen:

"MESMERIZING" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"SEARING" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"DESERVING OF ITS OWN STREAMING PLATFORM" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"ICONIC" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"BIRD AT HIS BEST" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"YES" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"JUST WOW" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"A SWASH-BUCKLING ROMP" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"I THINK 'MY FINEST WORK YET' IS MY FINEST WORK YET" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

I enjoyed this far too much. Also, the video proper for "Sisyphus" includes Bird on a bicycle. Cara would have loved it!)

After giving the album a good number of listens, remarkably, I think there may be merit to the claim that it (Bird's twelfth solo studio album) is his finest work yet.

When you listen to a new Andrew Bird album, to some extent you have a good idea of what you're getting into. The exceptionally talented singer-songwriter has developed a sound that is very much his own, a brand of indie folk/rock that is highlighted by his violin playing, his remarkable talent for whistling, and his distinctive vocals and lyrics. Each album tends to have its own sound, but the sounds of most of the albums occupy the same general musical space. My Finest Work Yet is no different, but there's something about this one that feels like Bird has just taken all the elements that made his previous music so good and melded them together in a really sublime way. Also, I felt that some of Bird's previous albums could have used a little editing; they perhaps ran a little long (2012's Break It Yourself in particular). His most recent full-length before MFWY, 2016's Are You Serious, on the other hand, I felt suffered from too many of the songs being relatively short in length; the music didn't have enough space to breathe. His latest threads the needle perfectly with ten songs that all feel essential to the album, and each song is given the space it needs - the contemplative, six-and-a-half minute "Bloodless" is an especial highlight.

There is one way that MFWY actually is a significant departure in sound from all of Bird's previous albums, and that's in the prominent role of a piano in most of the songs on the album. But here's the thing - until I read the interview with Bird that is included in the liner notes, it didn't even occur to me that it was unusual for his music to have much piano. That's how naturally it's integrated into his style. The piano helps give a jazzy feel to a number of the tracks and it really suits Bird so well.

Putting an interview with the artist in the liner notes of an album is unusual, but I think it was a really good idea. The interview gave me a lot of interesting insight into Bird's mindset and process of making the album. I learned, for example, that the album was recorded live: "live vocals, no headphones, no separation. We were trying to get all the instruments to bleed into each other's mics in a pleasing way as opposed to a messy way." Like the interviewer (author Dave Eggers, who went to high school with Bird), I would never have guessed it was all recorded live, but now that I know that, I can picture it while listening to the album and I can see how it could have helped give the album the very pleasing sound it has.

I also liked Bird's discussion of writing a song and picturing playing that song live, including potentially playing it live many years in the future: "There's one song I've been doing for 16 or 17 years now, almost every show. It's called "Why," and it's a conversation between two people - an argument, if you will - and in it, I'm mostly playing the role of the other person in the relationship that I find myself in, a person that's frustrated with my passiveness. So, in the whole song, I'm getting mad at myself, and I'm playing myself as well. It's mostly the voice of the pissed off person that's like, "Why don't you show more passion? Why don't you get mad?" And I get really mad, every night, and it never fails. I don't think I've ever written a song where I get so much satisfaction over berating myself, or my former self."

Cara loved "Why." It was one of her favorite songs. I remember the first time we saw him together, twelve years ago, and how mesmerized she was at that song, a song that I'm pretty sure she at the time had never previously heard. I'm also amused by Bird's description because I remember that Cara would sometimes get frustrated with my passiveness.

My Finest Work Yet is a very political album, a description that applies to no previous Andrew Bird album. Bird's lyrics still have his usual whimsical style, but unmistakable references to current events populate the album. "Bloodless" laments that "The best have lost their convictions/While the worst keep sharpening their claws/Peddling in their dark fictions/While what's left of us we just hem and we haw." "Fallorun" much more directly references Donald Trump (although not by name): "You think it's just an aberration/That it could not happen here/Such an abomination/Could be the man of the year."

The message of "Archipelago," I think, is especially worth pondering: "We're locked in a death grip and it's taking its toll/When our enemies are what make us whole." More and more in today's society it seems like people are becoming defined by who and what they hate. Trumpism and to a certain extent the modern conservative movement as a whole are a grievance movement - its main reason for existence seems to be exacting punishment and revenge on those (people of color, feminists, LGBT people, immigrants, Muslims, etc.) who members of the movement see as enemies. Their enemies are what make them whole. And while I can't stand both-sides-ism and would never suggest that people who vigorously and vehemently oppose Trump are equivalent to people who support Trump, I think many liberals are also allowing themselves to become defined by their enemies in an unhealthy way. Someone who watches MSNBC all day won't be divorced from reality in the way that someone who watches Fox News all day will, but both people will be spending a huge amount of time having their minds filled with things to be angry about, and I don't think that's healthy.

These topics are touched on in the interview as well. "I'm interested in the idea that our enemies are what make us whole," Bird remarks. "That's what I'm trying to look at. And how we've gotten to this point and how we could, through awareness of it, maybe pull ourselves out of it." That's something we should all consider, I'd say.

I think about sharing this album with Cara and I think about the fact that to explain the album to her I'd have to explain to her the fact that Donald Trump is the president and a burgeoning neo-fascist movement is threatening our democracy and it's all still so surreal. Cara passed away almost two months before Trump announced his candidacy, so the idea of Trump as president was something she never had to hold as one of her concerns or worries. Sometimes a part of me thinks sardonically that she was lucky to escape this bizarre and distressing reality we now inhabit.

It is a very sad thing that we live in a time that causes someone like Andrew Bird to feel compelled to directly address politics in his music. But it's also a very good thing that we have that music to help us reckon with and get through this time.

I really like the the last exchange in the Eggers/Bird conversation so I'll close by sharing it:

DE: Do you find that your audiences are hungrier for some sort of communal feeling during times like this? I can't imagine anything more cathartic or healing than to play music to hundreds of people - that energy in a room, I would think, is rebalancing.

AB: Playing live and meeting folks after the shows does more to set my mind right and reinforce my faith in humanity than anything else I could possibly do. Get off your news feed and gather in a dark room with strangers for something that doesn't involve acrimony. It's that simple.

Dear Cara

I saw Andrew Bird perform last night. It was a really great show, and I really wish you could have been there. Even though it was at the House of Blues. I just know how appalled you would have been that Andrew Bird played a show at the House of Blues. I got reserved balcony seats for the show, and can you believe it, my seat had a partially obstructed view of the stage. I could see a little more than half of the stage, and I could see Andrew Bird for the entire show, so that wasn't too bad, but there were other seats next to mine with even more obstructed views. Seriously, why would someone design a music venue that has reserved balcony seating with obstructed views of the stage? Sigh, just another reason to think that place is a terrible venue... I know, you never even went to a show there, just because of the reputation. I think you would have made an exception for Andrew Bird, though.

Venue aside, it really was a fantastic show. It had been four years since we last saw him, and he's the same great performer and quirky personality he always has been. The best part was the encore, with him and his band gathered around a single microphone performing some acoustic songs, "old-timey" as Andrew Bird called it when they did the same thing at that show in Columbus four years ago.

I remember how much you loved that. That was a really amazing experience we had together. We were so close to the stage!

Leia went to the show with me last night and we had a great time together. I actually asked Troy first, partly because the show was exactly a year after that Sufjan Stevens show last year that you gave Troy your ticket to because you weren't feeling well. We had no idea then how little time you had left. Troy couldn't go last night, and Leia was a great second choice. It's funny to think, when we saw Andrew Bird together at Playhouse Square seven years ago (a show you wrote a nice review of), Leia was also sitting next to me, but we didn't know each other yet. I recognized her from being in Afternoon Naps, though. And she told me yesterday that she had also recognized me then, from being in the audience at Afternoon Naps shows! It was the following month that you and I were the queen and king at the Beachland Prom. I don't think Leia ever told us this while you were still alive, but she was the one who got people to vote for us. And that was still before we were actually friends with her! She could just tell we were a really awesome couple and deserved to be the Prom King and Queen. Isn't that great?

Maybe even more than going to the show, I wish you could hear Andrew Bird's new album. I really love it; I think it's one of his best albums. I think you'd love it too, and I really wish I could hear your reaction to it. I didn't know this before I got the album, but Andrew Bird's wife had thyroid cancer (she's better now) and that experience had a big influence on the album. I think that's part of why it's so great. There's one song, "Puma," that's directly about the experience of her going through treatment. I'm really moved by the song, and I really love the lyrics:

Don't try to tell her she's less feline than human
For it gives rise to the rumor
She's a girl and not a puma

And that light that shines is not a pearl
It's just a tumor

When she was radioactive for seven days
How I wanted to be holding her anyway
But the doctors they told me to stay away
Due to flying neutrinos and
Gamma rays

I came across a great interview with Andrew Bird and he talks about this song in the interview:

At one point, my wife said to me when she was going to get this test, she said “I’m afraid they’re going to tell me I’m a girl and not a Puma.” I thought that was such a remarkable thing to say. It’s a bit hard to explain why she would say that, but I can say that she has kind of a feline disposition (laughs). I decided I wanted to write a song that celebrates how she dealt with all of this adversity.

There's another really great song on the album, "Left-Handed Kisses," that is a duet with Andrew Bird and Fiona Apple. I think you'd love the song. Fiona Apple always makes me think of when we listened to one of her albums at the cabin in Holmes County. It's funny how sometimes certain pieces of music can be so tied to specific memories. At the concert, Andrew Bird went ahead and performed the song despite having no female vocalist with him, and he sang both parts of the duet himself. It was great.

Another part of the album that made me think of you is in the song "Valleys of the Young," these lyrics:

Now you're going on 64, driving down 65
To the hospital to see if your adult son will survive or not
After taking those pills in the parking lot
You know the one behind the Marriott

I remember how annoyed you were when an Andrew Bird song showed up in a Marriott commercial. I wonder if it was an intentional, sort of sly self-referential thing for him to put that in the lyrics. I was listening to the album at work, doing some cell culture stuff, when I realized the connection and I just started cracking up, thinking about how you might react to it.

There's been some other music recently I'd also like to share with you. I'm really enjoying the new Nada Surf album as well. And earlier this year, Lucius put out a fantastic new album and I saw them play a really stunning show at the Beachland. I remember how much you were looking forward to seeing them open for the Decemberists in California last year. It's too bad you never got to see them live.

I was originally planning to take your mom to the Andrew Bird show, because she's talked about listening to his music and how it makes her think of you and me, but she ended up deciding she wasn't up for making the trip, which was too bad. It's been a really hard time for her, losing you and then losing Gram just a few months later. I know you'd be very glad to hear, though, that she and I are still great friends. Actually, our relationship became stronger after we lost you. We have some great conversations on the phone, and I usually visit her when I'm in Columbus. I had a really nice Christmas dinner with her and Trent.

Mitters and Eponine are still doing well, although they do still get in fights sometimes (of course). Mitters is starting to show more signs of her age. She still sometimes likes to jump up on the bathroom sink and ask for water from the faucet, but I've noticed it's becoming harder for her to make the jump. Sometimes she fails the jump, which is adorable but also kind of sad. Overall, the old lady seems to be in pretty good health, though. And she really loves me and hangs out with me a lot, although one thing that's interesting is ever since you've been gone, she stopped coming to bed at night (Eponine still sleeps with me). It's hard to believe Eponine is older now than Mitters was when I met you!

It's been a hard year for me too. I've had a lot of great support from my friends, and I owe you a lot for all the great friends I have. Both because a lot of them I met through you, and also that your influence on me really helped me become a lot better at making new friends. I was doing well for a while, but then last fall I had a recurrence of some really bad chronic pain and became quite depressed. Then there were a few times when I felt like I was getting better, but then got worse again, and felt like I was sliding back toward that deep depression. I remember once, when I was going through another period of really bad chronic pain and feeling pretty down about my life, you told me that maybe I should "talk to someone," as in, seek out psychiatric help. I said that the only thing that would make me feel better was if the pain got better (which thankfully it eventually did), so I didn't see the point. I should have listened to you, though. Recently I have been much more proactive in seeking out help in multiple ways, physical and mental. After being officially diagnosed with depressive disorder (which obviously, I already was depressed, but hadn't been diagnosed before), I have been taking Zoloft for about six weeks now, and I feel like that, along with several other things, is starting to really help. My pain has also been less bad recently, but additionally, I feel like even though the Zoloft does not directly target the pain, it modulates the effect the pain has on my mood. And there is a feedback cycle where I feel stress and anxiety about the pain, and those make the pain worse, and also make it harder for me to sleep, and lack of sleep also makes the pain worse. And I feel like I am starting to really break that cycle. In the last few weeks, there have been some times when I've felt really happy. Not just kind of happy, but genuinely very happy. Which is a wonderful thing to feel, because the last time I felt that way was back in October before this pain episode started.

I kind of worry that by writing down and sharing the fact that I feel like I'm really getting better, I will jinx myself and get worse again. But I know that's irrational.

You were so graceful and brave in the way you dealt with the horrible adversity that you faced. I remember you telling me that you couldn't have done it without me. I feel the same way now. Even though you aren't physically here, you'll always be with me, and always be a source of strength. Our time together was too short, and I'll always miss you, but I'll always be grateful that we got to be such a big part of each other's lives.

Love,

Jeff

P.S. Today is a really beautiful day, and I went on a great bike ride!