To all the people underground
All my life, I’ve been pretty neurotic about getting decent sleep, resulting from, or possibly helping to spur on, a history of insomnia.
This week, I’ve thrown all that to the wind. The past three nights, I’ve gotten about 10 hours of sleep, combined. Not all this is due to carousing. The night before last and the one before that, it was good old fashioned cursing and turning.
By last night though, I figured I was on such a roll of delirium, that I might as well have a good time – so I broke my ban of going out on weeknights and went to see one of my absolutely favorite people play music: M.Ward.
The crowd at the Earl last night was huge, which initially gave me kind of a protective older sister kinda feeling since why, I knew M. Ward back when he had one quiet, lovely c.d. out. Now it’s four cds later and he’s the New York Times and Salon darling and good for him, too, because I continue to adore what he does and it’s nice to see your friends (even your imagined-friends) succeed.
Lots of major differences between the last show I saw of his and this one. The last one, he opened up for somebody or other at the now sadly-defunct Echolounge. It was a couple albums ago, and it was just him and his acoustic guitar, all sitting down and quiet and reserved. He hung out in the club the whole night and I chatted some with him when I bought a short live album from him at his table in back. He struck me as kind of all-to-himself and lonely, at the time. When he took to the stage, his ridiculous technical mastery floored the front half of the large club and produced the appropriate awed silence, but in the back near the bar, people continued to have their all-important social hour, as this is the Atlanta Way, despite the existence of an Entire Separate Room/Bar that they could have hung out in. Anyway, about halfway through that set, he looked up at us and spoke into his microphone softly, “Thanks. The err, front-half of Atlanta audiences are great.” He and Hunter even chatted a little during his set, and he played a request for him.
Not this time, man. This time, there were other people setting up the stage for M. Ward and selling his cds in back. Assistants. I wondered aloud if he had turned into some kind of Howard Hughes-esque figure, and my friend and I agreed it would be interesting if he insisted on playing the entire show from the backstage bathroom. When he finally took to the stage, the lights dimmed. When he took up his guitar for his first song, he stalked the stage, staring out into the huge crowd until there was utter silence in the club. Then he proceeded to play the first acoustic tune on his new album. It was beautiful and full of ornate braggadocio. Then he switched to an electric guitar and brought out a full band and suddenly it was a rock show. Very enjoyable, but of course part of me wanted to shake my head at my dear, sweet, quiet guitar player, all grown up now.
I got home a little after one, finally fell asleep a little after two, and came to work this morning at the usual 5:30. Woo-hoo! So far, I’ve rambled along in conversation a little too long with the woman who sold me coffee at the Gas ‘n Sip (Not Actual Name, most unfortunately), tripped coming up the stairs to the office and spilled said coffee everywhere and—oh, spent fifteen minutes writing this instead of working, which rather needs to be taking place right now, in kind of a dire way. (NOT that I write this from work.) All right, then. Rock on.
All my life, I’ve been pretty neurotic about getting decent sleep, resulting from, or possibly helping to spur on, a history of insomnia.
This week, I’ve thrown all that to the wind. The past three nights, I’ve gotten about 10 hours of sleep, combined. Not all this is due to carousing. The night before last and the one before that, it was good old fashioned cursing and turning.
By last night though, I figured I was on such a roll of delirium, that I might as well have a good time – so I broke my ban of going out on weeknights and went to see one of my absolutely favorite people play music: M.Ward.
The crowd at the Earl last night was huge, which initially gave me kind of a protective older sister kinda feeling since why, I knew M. Ward back when he had one quiet, lovely c.d. out. Now it’s four cds later and he’s the New York Times and Salon darling and good for him, too, because I continue to adore what he does and it’s nice to see your friends (even your imagined-friends) succeed.
Lots of major differences between the last show I saw of his and this one. The last one, he opened up for somebody or other at the now sadly-defunct Echolounge. It was a couple albums ago, and it was just him and his acoustic guitar, all sitting down and quiet and reserved. He hung out in the club the whole night and I chatted some with him when I bought a short live album from him at his table in back. He struck me as kind of all-to-himself and lonely, at the time. When he took to the stage, his ridiculous technical mastery floored the front half of the large club and produced the appropriate awed silence, but in the back near the bar, people continued to have their all-important social hour, as this is the Atlanta Way, despite the existence of an Entire Separate Room/Bar that they could have hung out in. Anyway, about halfway through that set, he looked up at us and spoke into his microphone softly, “Thanks. The err, front-half of Atlanta audiences are great.” He and Hunter even chatted a little during his set, and he played a request for him.
Not this time, man. This time, there were other people setting up the stage for M. Ward and selling his cds in back. Assistants. I wondered aloud if he had turned into some kind of Howard Hughes-esque figure, and my friend and I agreed it would be interesting if he insisted on playing the entire show from the backstage bathroom. When he finally took to the stage, the lights dimmed. When he took up his guitar for his first song, he stalked the stage, staring out into the huge crowd until there was utter silence in the club. Then he proceeded to play the first acoustic tune on his new album. It was beautiful and full of ornate braggadocio. Then he switched to an electric guitar and brought out a full band and suddenly it was a rock show. Very enjoyable, but of course part of me wanted to shake my head at my dear, sweet, quiet guitar player, all grown up now.
I got home a little after one, finally fell asleep a little after two, and came to work this morning at the usual 5:30. Woo-hoo! So far, I’ve rambled along in conversation a little too long with the woman who sold me coffee at the Gas ‘n Sip (Not Actual Name, most unfortunately), tripped coming up the stairs to the office and spilled said coffee everywhere and—oh, spent fifteen minutes writing this instead of working, which rather needs to be taking place right now, in kind of a dire way. (NOT that I write this from work.) All right, then. Rock on.
posted by Alice at 5:28 AM
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