Sunday, June 13, 2004

Jackson Browne

I drove over 400 miles to go to a concert this weekend (one way). The whole trip was a kind of solitary retreat. Friends and family don't really seem to understand why I would drive that far or go to a concert alone. I'm not real sure why I would go to a concert with other people. Well ok, I can see that having other people there is not all bad.

But on the drive back I began to try to explain to myself why I was doing this. The concert was thoroughly enjoyable to me. It was a benefit that essentially kept me outdoors from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m.. The weather was magnificent - cool and stormy but not raining. The first two acts were absolutely wonderful. The venue was relaxed. When the headline act (Jackson Browne, of course) started though, the obnoxious people in the audience surged forward and it was no longer possible to see anything without standing up. Jackson Browne was doing an acoustical set with no band. He was incredibly charming and entertaining in as intimate setting as you can get with 5000 people attending.

But I have been to concerts before where as the band was excellent and I was still wondering what possesed me to go to concerts in the first place. Why didn't I just buy the CD or watch a video, instead of crowding into a huge concert area which was generally not all that comfortable. For this concert, the question did not arise until the drive home. But this time the answer was easy.

This concert was just for me. A good performer will make you feel special - as if they are speaking directly to you or as if the performance you are seeing is unique. Perhaps because I admire Jackson Browne so much, he is analogus to a prince charming to me. And his concerts are like a Cinderella ball - where I get to go to be with prince charming. But when it's over, I go back to my life. And that's ok, because as it turns out - I'm not Cinderella. My life is actually pretty darn good and I don't need to be rescued from it. In fact if I were the type of person who were going to sit around waiting to be rescued from a miserable life, I'd probably be the same kind of person who would end up as a slovenly toad being waited on hand and foot after I was rescued. But I still like the romantic ball.