When I go to a concert, I want transcendence. The first person to come to mind when I think about this is Mike McCready of Pearl Jam. I have seen them live 8 times. Sometimes he will get into a solo and put his head back and he is just gone. Taken to another place. I saw them in Nashville back in 2000. It was 100 degrees with this crazy humidity at 11 at night and the show was coming to an end and they went into Yellow Ledbetter. They end their shows with this song all the time, but this time it was different. Mike went into the end and it just connects with me every time. If you have 5 minutes listen here and close your eyes. The last 2 minutes were incredible.
Tim and I have been getting our 2 man version of A Faster Horse ready. The last time we played I had strep throat and all these challenges kept coming up. Which caused me to lean on God more.
The first time I do something new is not the hard one because I have to rely on something more than myself, I am not in control, especially when challenges come up.
The second time is the one I think is the hardest. I gain a little confidence and start relying more on myself. “I got this, we’re good, no problem”, thinking that somehow this has something to do with me or my skill and that I can just rest on that and be fine. Which is totally untrue. I cannot do it the way it needs to be done, only God can.
I don’t know if everyone reading this believes in God or not, but I do. For those of you who don’t, think about the thing you are most passionate about in life. You know when you are playing a show or doing whatever it is that you do that you and that magic moment comes that you cannot explain. When your head goes back and your just gone. Where everything works and you transcend what could be done on your own. That’s God. Like it or not.
When I don’t acknowledge that ahead of time and think it has something to do with me, it may not be a bad show, but it will not be transcendent, and that is what God wants. He wants us to transcend what we can do our own. That is what I want too. Every time. The first, second or even hundredth time.
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