Hurts So Good

Los Angeles, California

While last week's Sarah McLachlan concert evoked a multi-leveled response encompassing micro and macro upheaval and challenges, plus reminiscences, this week's concert was on the far other end of the spectrum. 

In celebration of her birthday the following day, I took my friend, Connie, to John Mellencamp's concert at The Hollywood Bowl. After Sarah's Greek Theater Concert, the Bowl seemed ginormous! And it was filled to the gills with all levels of Mellencamp fans. Of course you always expect to see devoted fans at any concert you attend, but I'm here to tell you, true Mellencampers are fervently dedicated!

It was interesting to me that the fans of Sarah brought a level just short of mania to her concert last week. The intensity of response to her music was more than I had experienced at her other two concerts which I had attended last year. She seemed surprised as well, as she kept turning to her guitarist and making that gesture with her hands and arms like What is going on here?

I decided that this reaction to Sarah could be attributed to the world in which we are currently experiencing so much vitriol and evil, which has permeated so much of our everyday living. There is a feeling of helplessness in the knowledge of what is going on with the daily flaunting of our nation's constitution, customs, and mores by those in power. So maybe when we music lovers are put into a situation where goodness and connection are provided, we just lose our minds.

I figured the audience experience at Sarah's concert was a one-off. But no, the much larger audience who came to hear John Mellencamp's music was just as jacked up. And I mean that in a positive sense. They were happy, grateful, and joyous to the Nth degree. They sang, they stood, they applauded mid-song.

And just a small anecdote. When Mellencamp sang the lyric: And they vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico from Little Pink Houses, he stopped the song to question whether it was still called the Gulf of Mexico, adding that he had heard somebody was trying to change that. The audience broke into wild cheering and applause and above it all from the audience came the shout: He's a fucking asshole! Applause and cheering went to that infamous Spinal Tap's level eleven.

Our seats were on the aisle in the bench section which is on either side of the boxes. I always look for seats in that section and these were pretty close to where Joel and I sat in 2018 when we saw Paul Simon during his Farewell Tour. Next to us were two women who were hugely devoted fans and they knew the words to every song. And while it can be annoying when people sing along with a concert (much more so if it's a revival of a musical theater production), this ecstatic audience singing along with every song actually enhanced the experience and didn't detract from actually hearing Mellencamp's voice. It was just too much fun to be annoyed by anything.

The next day I met my friend, Beth2, for breakfast before my physical therapy appointment for my ongoing shoulder issue, and I ran a few errands after PT. And all of the time I was in my car driving to and fro, I was listening to a mix of John Mellencamp's greatest hits. It was a hot LA day (it's been a hot LA summer), but I cracked my window so my hair could blow in the wind, and I sang and sang to all of the music I had heard so joyously the night before. I was still singing when I hit the elevator at the medical building and ran into my therapist, William. How was the concert? he asked. Fantastic! I'm still singing Hurt So Good! And the beauty of it all was that there was no hurt at all, good or bad. The afterglow of the concert felt so blissful.

When the Dodgers win, the stadium plays I Love LA. Now, anyone up on their Randy Newman knows this song is not a celebration of LA, but irony is lost on most people, including, evidently, Dodgers management. But there is something in the sentiment of the title of that song, that I think real LA natives feel. LA has changed monumentally. There are so few of us natives amongst all the millennials who flooded in to work in "the industry." It will never be the LA where I grew up. But every so often after summer nights at these glorious outdoor venues experiencing the  transcendence of hearing stellar music under the stars, I truly do think I still love LA. And also now kinda loving John Mellencamp's music more than I ever did before.

Resonance

Los Angeles, California

I thought to call this post Sarah, Part Three, but I frankly couldn't remember if there was a Sarah or a Sarah, Part Two. And, resonance fits here, so that's what it is.

Cin and I went to see Sarah McLachlan last night. It is the second time we've seen her together this year, and the third time I have seen her in the past year. This concert was at The Greek Theater which is such a lovely venue tucked into the hills of Griffith Park, LA's largest park and nothing whatsoever like Central Park in Manhattan. It's wild, mountainous, and topped by the famous Griffith Park Observatory featured in films like Rebel Without a Cause and La La Land.

We had amazing seats, fourth row of fixed seating, in the center, on the aisle. And we were just coming off of a heat wave so evening temps were comfortable without sweaters or jackets.

Before the concert started, we conversed a bit with the couple who were seated next to us. He asked me if I had seen Sarah before and I told him, rather sheepishly, that it was my third time seeing her this year. So you're a big fan, he stated. I told him why. There is not an emotion nor an issue that I have ever experienced in my life that isn't expressed in her music. I asked him if it was his first Sarah concert and he said it was. So what brings you here? He told me that he works with substance abuse patients and her music often resonates with what his patients are experiencing, especially Angel. I can see why. She speaks to wounded souls. He replied that there are a lot of wounded souls out there. We're all wounded souls, I said.

Turns out that he is a psychiatrist who runs substance abuse as well as related programs at UCLA. Since Cin is a psychotherapist, they connected and after the concert, he offered his card to her In case I can help in any way.

So the evening with Sarah's music was a lot about touch, connection, emotions of joy and remembrance. And just to recap, Cin and I have known each other since 1977 and have been through a lot together: Divorce; deaths; aging, and a separation when we put our friendship on hold that grew to fifteen years. So when Sarah sang I Will Remember You, the song that used to remind me of my dad but now is only about my late husband, Tom, and I wept again as I had in the other two concerts this year, she put her hand on my arm. By the time Sarah came back out to sing Gravity and Angel in her expected encore, we both cried through both songs and made a stack of our hands on top of each other's.

I was reminded of a concert I attended with my friend, Holly, in San Francisco. She lost her husband, Doug, the same year that Tom died. Neither of us were prepared for James Taylor singing Fire and Rain, with the lyric: But I always thought I'd see you again. We ended up in each other's arms, tears streaming, by the end of that plaintive song.

The thing about last night's glorious concert on such a lovely Los Angeles night, is that we both knew that we were willingly and wantingly walking into that experience. And yet, we also sang Ice Cream with the entire audience, and rocked to Building a Mystery. Her concerts span the spectrum of emotions and as I write this listening to a scramble of her music from my iTunes library, I feel the resonance of what her music means. What it means to me.

In the years before Tom died, I noticed that he was flat. We could be doing or experiencing the most joyous activity or event, and he was just emotionally flat, no matter what. I am someone who über-experiences my emotions. Dancing brings me joy, but occasionally it tips over into rapturous joy. I felt the same after seeing Candide at LA Opera, or after my one and only Rolling Stones concert in 1975 (Tour of the Americas, I still have the T-shirt) attended with my great love, David, who was (is?) the biggest Rolling Stones fan ever. One night after attending a screening of Ken Burns' newest documentary at the Museum of Motion Pictures in Hollywood, I was so elated at the surprise of Ken Burns showing up and speaking (and doing a Q + A afterwards!) that my friend, Karen, remarked to me the next day that she was surprised that I was so hyper after the event. I guess elation can come across as hyperness. For me, it is that unexpected joy that can possess you when you experience something truly special. It doesn't happen often. But, truthfully, I have always lived for those stellar moments.

And the thing is, that it seems to always happen when I see Sarah. Something about the music, especially the lyrics, and her distinctive voice. I texted Cin this morning that we should see her every time she is touring. It can be our thing, I wrote. She texted back I love it!!! And maybe that's the biggest thing. That hearing and feeling the love on that stage and in that audience. You just knew that everyone was feeling it. And it is something we need so much in these terribly dark and corrupt times. So today, I am listening to her and it is bringing me the resonance of last night's concert of tears and joy. And I just cannot wait till she comes back to town again.