Travel by Gig

Recently I had a gig in a small town about 15 miles west of where I live. It was a wintry night, and as the always-on heater warmed up the interior of the car, I slipped into a cocoon of contentment and memory. It had been a long time since I had played anywhere, even longer since I had to travel out-of-town to get to the gig. And as I watched the distant lights across fields of snow, I was very strongly reminded of so many similar travels to gigs with my old band, Crome Yellow, back "in the day". Days when we were young and felt invincible, like we were doing something important, like the combined intent and artistry of the three musicians, the three friends, inside of Jason's blue Ford Econoline van on some frozen trek up to Minneapolis, was some great secret that only we held and we were about to share it with the world. I miss those days greatly. The list of why I miss those days is long and speaks volumes to who I am, or at least, who I always wanted to be. And I realized that a "gig" was not just the show, the minutes on stage when we would power through our set list at twice the speed we had during practice, but a gig was a day-long event, the loading of the van, the travel, the discussions, the smoking, the freezing your ass off if it was winter (even with the heavy blanket Jason put up to separate the cab of the van from the back where the equipment was, the pain of sitting in the folding car between the two bucket seats (thank god we were only a three-piece), the arrival at the show and catching up with old musician friends (loved you, Skeleton Ed, The Loose Rails, Chad Apold and so many more), the soundcheck, and all of the little details such as the layers of band stickers in the concrete dressing room below First Avenue/7th Street Entry. It was beautiful. And I would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.