Since Last We Spoke

It seems that I have pulled a muscle on the inside of my leg. I think it happened sometime Sunday. God, it kind of hurts. Also, I'm having this problem with some sort of recurring muscle spasm that is afflicting the lower lid of my left eye. It makes me feel like a pirate.

But I mean, other than that, I'm doing fine. How are you?

Last night, I went to Summerfest. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I hate Summerfest, mainly on Principal, but that every year I wind up going at least once. Actually, I found I went something like three times last year. Once to see Al Green, another time to see Medeski, Martin and Wood, and the third time to, um, do something. (Actually, if I rememeber correctly, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, that last time, and didn't have much fun, but went because it was suggested by someone that I was being something of a "stick in the mud." This is something that motivates me to do a lot of things I wouldn't otherwise do.)

But this year, I saw the North Mississippi Allstars, who opened up for Wilco. Now, where to begin on this show?

OK first, North Mississippi Allstars are amazing. Secondly, were I to meet this guy, my first impression would be that he was some expert programmer; like a Perl guru or Kernel hacker or something. But actually, despite the sort of nerdy appearance, he can rip these melodic blues solos and sing beautifully, effortlessly. Really a sort of weird thing to see happen, to watch this guy get on stage and tear it up as he does. And it also goes to show what little meaning we should ascribe to first impressions.

Do you remember in 1998 and then last year, when Billy Bragg and Wilco collaborated on the Mermaid Avenue projects? I actually own both CD's, but until last night sort of temporarily forgot about them. OK, to clarify: I didn't necessarily forget about them, so much as I became so preoccupied with new musical acquisitions that those albums sort of fell out of regular rotation. That's something that happens to me a lot, which I suppose is due to my poor attention span. But to get back on track: Wilco played for or five songs off these two albums, all in a row, a few of them caught me, I started getting emotional, and my eyes got wet. I really can't tell you when the last time was that that happened at a rock concert, and especially at Summerfest. Wow.

OK, now two short paragraphs about the experience.

Someone at the show was smoking pot. I guess I've been going to a lot of punk rock shows lately, where this is not such a common thing to have happen. Though it was a bit foreign at first, it became familiar soon enough, and actually made me smile nostalgically. But I was glad it was not me who was getting escorted out by some muscle-bound security guard.

The other story is this. Do you know how some songs have a few quiet introductory measures before they move into the full-blown, emotionally engaging body of the music? The encore to Wilco's set was like this. And just as they moved into the song, came crashing down on that downbeat we all knew was coming, rain came pouring down. The crowd cheered at this. I did, too. We all got wet. Sure it was sappy, maybe even a little trite, but I also found it kind of beautiful.

Yay.

But that's all I got. Anyway, I have to limp over to Miriam's house and party like it was, well, the Third of July.

But I'm really glad we had this talk.