On The Stage
There are two worlds: one that is on the stage and one that is not. It makes performance a strange and disorienting phenomenon. Because when you’re up on the stage, and you’re playing music with your friends and your good people, and in you’re in the midst of some kind of emotion. Well, it’s not that there’s nothing like that in the world. It’s more that there are very few things like that in the world. There is something whole and complete about that moment, as narcissistic and self-aggrandizing as that sounds.
Maybe it’s because the band is so big that the only time we’re all together as one huge collective is typically the night of the performance. Otherwise, it’s pockets of people for rehearsal and there’s always the notion that some kind of gratification or coherence is being delayed or forestalled.
Or maybe it’s simply because these are moments when, strangely, you can drop the artifice. When you’re on stage and in the midst of your song and you’re playing the music, there is no need for anything else. No silly conversation. No awkward social conventions. It can be a pure and honest thing and in concert and in league with all of your mates. And even in close symbiosis with the people in the audience. All part of something bigger and brighter and more alive than when we amble about it and bump into each other in the real world.
That feeling. One of super-reality and alive-ness. That feeling serves in direct contrast to the feeling that happens immediately after the show. That feeling after the show is entirely different and in opposition to the feeling during the show and the contrast is jarring.
Because after the show you’re in the midst of all of that awkwardness and anti-reality. And you’re talking about the thing. Which is never the thing itself. And you’re walking around and patting your mates on the back and saying, “Well, wasn’t that special?” And it was. Of course it was. And we have great affection for each other and for our friends in the audience. But then there’s the wondering, “Did they really like it?” and “What were they really thinking?” and, of course, who really cares and you can’t worry about it, etc. But it’s there. And also there is the feeling that the good thing that you had can’t be recreated through words or through drink or through drugs and as hard as you try to get it back, it’s gone and has evaporated into the atmosphere. It’s a whisper and a memory.
And maybe that’s why some people lose themselves in drugs or sex or something akin. Because they’re searching for that hyper-reality that always seems to recede further into the distance and against the horizon the more you chase it. And talking about it doesn’t really help because it only makes you conscious of its absence.
So it’s strange. And it’s not that I don’t love the audience or my friends or anyone. It’s more that I find these fleeting moments very beautiful and hard to grapple with.
And, honestly, the only other time I truly feel that power and that surge is when I exercise. This morning, running up the West Side Highway in the cold and the wind. The water was a very deep purple, almost black, and I was listening to dance music and watching the cars drive past with their headlights on. And the cloud was lightening in the East and the lights of the George Washington Bridge were flickering and across the river in New Jersey. And my legs were carrying me along and my heart beating confidently. And that feeling of being alive and of living was similar, actually, to the feeling of being on stage and performing music. But the difference, of course, is that when you’re on stage, and with the big band, you’re not alone. Quite the contrary, in fact. You’re with some beautiful and lovely people and it’s a feeling of being alive and in love and in communion with more than just yourself.
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wendy
