bandstand in the sky
(En route from Houston to Austin on Highway 290 on a beautiful summer night)
So come with me to a place that we don’t know
If you need some inspiration before we go, just know
It’s the way I have fallen in with you
Come with me, I just wanna say hello
It’s the way I have fallen in with you
– “Bandstand in the Sky” from the album Nightcrawler, Pete Yorn
It was the summer of 2006 and the husband and I had faithfully been listening to Pete’s first two CDs, Musicforthemorningafter and Day I Forgot for four straight years together. We even bought Pete’s Live from New Jersey– never mind that it only had a couple of new songs. I guess that’s what happens when you really become a fan of somebody. I wouldn’t know, I’m not a very good music fan. I rarely remember song lyrics, I often don’t recognize artists when I put my iTunes on shuffle, and I generally dislike going to concerts.
But this was different. This was Pete Yorn and he was playing a show in Austin as part of his “You and Me” acoustic tour to promote the release of his third CD, Nightcrawler. The only other artist that even comes close to how much I like Pete Yorn is Elliott Smith and I definitely don’t know all of his songs (granted, Elliott has a ton more songs than Pete).
So yeah, the concert was on a Wednesday night, but who cares, because we were going to leave right after work on Wednesday, watch the show, and drive straight into work on Thursday morning. This is one of the things I love the most about the husband. In the face of logistical difficulty, his stance is always, “If we really want to do this, let’s just do it. We shouldn’t let things like driving or less sleep stop us. C’mon, it’ll be worth it.”
I know this sounds silly but the night felt magical. I think working in a cubicle day-in and day-out had really robbed me of my wonder. As we drove to Austin I remarked at how pretty the drive was and how much I missed it. And then we did something we never do on our drives to Austin. We pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, took photos and just enjoyed the peacefulness of a Texas summer. (That’s when I took the picture that’s posted above.)
By the time we arrived in Austin the sun was already making it’s final goodbyes over the DKR Texas Memorial Stadium. We found parking pretty easily downtown since it was a Wednesday night and we excitedly hurried upstairs to The Parish, one of my favorite venues in Austin. The place was still fairly empty, we were super early. I’m really glad we were early though because the place eventually got pretty packed and because we were early we had a good spot near the front that let me take the following photos:
I took these photos in RAW format because I knew I wanted as much room to process as possible. But the crazy thing is I never had the software to even look at RAW format photos until I got this MacBookPro this past year. So two days ago I just came across this old CD-R in an old spindle of CDs that had “PETE YORN PHOTOS” written in large block letters in yellow sharpie (what a stupid color for a sharpie, I think it came in a set). It was such a delight to open these pictures up in Aperture, see these photos for the first time, and relive the night all over again.
It was a great concert. Probably the best concert of my life. The crowd was great, everyone was singing along. The setting was relatively intimate, the Parish room isn’t all that big. So many moments during the concert, the husband and I would look at each other with beaming smiles and just wordlessly relish in the fact that this was an amazing concert and wasn’t it so great to hear Pete live and acoustic and wasn’t it so great to be here together.
We left the concert glowing. Thanks to Judy for letting us crash at your place that night.
So fast forward three years to 2009. Pete’s coming to Houston on July 14 at the Meridian and we already have tickets for it. Will it be as memorable as our first? Probably not. But will it be a great concert? I sure hope so.
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In other news, I got the following email from Facebook last night:
Subject: Alexander Rodriguez added you as a friend on Facebook
Alexander added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Alexander in order for you to be friends on Facebook.
A-Rod?! Wait until I tell Lawrence!!
Unfortunately, when I went home and opened my Facebook Friend Requests page, I found this fellow looking at me.
Wrong Alexander Rodriguez. I’ll refrain from any Super Mario jokes. Beyond that one.
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