Monday, June 26, 2017

"She Only Drinks Coffee at Midnight, When the Moment Is Not Right..."



"See, her confidence is tragic, but her intuition magic..."





I sound like such a hipster when I say it or write it, but I loved Train before they became trendy. 

Like P!nk, Train showed that you could be... not what everyone expected you to be. You could be edgy. You could be silly. And you could be deeply complex. And you didn't have to be happy or whole all the time. It was OK to just be whatever you were at the moment.

"Meet Virginia" summed up all of that in one song for me. And it's been the song that is truly my anthem through all these years.

I'd never seen them in person until six years ago. It was the summer that Birdman broke up with me, and my best friend, in her total awesomeness, drove down here so I wouldn't have to go to the post-game Train concert alone. And when they did "Meet Virginia," I bawled. 

I've seen them almost every year since then. I've bawled at "Meet Virginia" most times, and I'm usually breathless during "Drops of Jupiter." Because these songs? These are the stories of my life.  

There was the concert where I drove seven hours to see them -- but only stopped at hour five because the car really needed gas. There was the one where I went with a fresh surgical incision on my thigh -- and where one of the security people, upon seeing my reaction to the whole show, moved me to the front of the section for the encore. There was the concert where I left the hotel at the crack of dawn because I had to be back for a work meeting even though I was technically supposed to be on a vacation day.

And then there was this past weekend. I almost think that was the most magical of them all. 

In one of those awesome signs of the universe, a gentleman offered to trade seats with me. His seat was separate from his wife and child's, and he asked if I wanted to switch. 

He was in the pit.

There was no question. 




I've never seen Train like this. I've never stood and heard that guitar solo in "Meet Virginia" as close as I did that night. Or watched the "Drops of Jupiter" encore, and thought, "Wow, I'm right in the middle of the most amazing thing I've ever seen."



I really don't know how I can top that concert experience. How do you sum up and beat what feels like a culmination of almost 20 years of an artist and group knowing exactly how to put your feelings to lyric and song, and then hearing them perform those feelings only 20 feet away from you?

"Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day, and head back toward the Milky Way? And are you lonely looking for yourself out there?"



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