Been a couple years, I guess.
Maybe more.
Actually, over 7 years.
Just checked my phone.
Times like these time and time again
The guy who books the club had invited me to a secret show with arguably the biggest band in the world. I stood a few rows back, in mild disbelief that these 6 guys, borderline legends, were taking the stage in our little beach town.
I was casual acquaintances with the guitar player… he’d know me if he saw me, if that counts. Probably doesn’t. And the keyboard player had played on two For The Sender albums. I’d had a few of those brushes with greatness back then, in the way a potato shares the same plate with a filet.
Nobody orders the filet for the potato, though.
I didn’t personally know the lead singer. His arena-sized voice should’ve dominated the small venue, but the crowd of a few hundred sang along to every word, lockstep with the cranked PA pushing out his lyrics.
Times like these you learn to live again
And I didn’t know the drummer. He seemed to be the biggest rockstar of them all, playing with frenzied, focused energy.
He’s gone now. Dead at the age 50, found in a hotel room in Bogota. Toxicology reports weren’t kind to his memory, and if he was partying with friends, they were long gone by the time the paramedics showed up.
I struggle as to whether what was in his system matters.
It’s not my business.
But I…
Never mind.
I’ll be on that same stage this Sunday, at the Belly Up with my friends Sean and Sara Watkins. If you’re there, you’ll see me turn around at some point to look at the space where our paths crossed one early January night.
When Taylor Hawkins played for us, as if his life depended on it.
Times like these you learn to live again
Times like these you learn to love again
Times like these time and time again
Maybe it did.