Whenever Jon Rodgers plays guitar, I cry. Whenever Andrew Bird parts his lips, my heart breaks. They were playing Iron and Wine between sets. I don't know how I made it through Sunday night alive.

I bring Jon a pumpkin to the show. Victoria asks me why. I'm not sure. We're sitting on the steps of the Space. If I had said that 3 years ago, it would have meant the Wonderland Records practice space on Treadwell St. in Hamden, CT. Where I cut my teeth on the indie music scene in 1993. Where I fell in love with life, a blond boy and six strings.

Back then, the practice space was a converted warehouse -- the home of the band Mighty Purple. The downstairs was filled with instruments. The upstairs was Wonderland Records, the label founded and run by Steve, Mighty Purple's front man. There was no heat and little running water. Our lives revolved around the Space.

Now "The Space" is across the street, in its very own building. Except it's not just for instrument storage and consumption of illicit substances anymore. The Space is an immaculate club Steve has nursed from the ground up into a fertile venue, record label, and thrift shop. They host open mic nights and band showcases, among a long list of other activites, all of which are performed for a full house. The kind of place that feels like your living room, but can book national acts like Andrew Bird. Like Sunday night.

Steve was untouchable to me in 1993 -- on stage, singing, dancing, throwing flowers to the sold-out audience. When he left the Daily Cafe, I would touch his chair just because he had sat in it. Then one night my friend Amanda and I were walking through the streets of New Haven, and ran into Steve, and I kidnapped him and took him to Amanda's cottage in the woods. He and I rowed out to the middle of the lake and talked until sunrise. He pulled tiny gold leaves from the water and gave them to me to commemorate the night. He told me he loved my innocence. He spent the next three years destroying it.

A decade later Victoria and I are sitting on the cement steps of the new and improved Space. It's overwhelming to come back here, to feel out of place in an environment I called home for so many years. To see the kids who took our place, though they are a cleaned-up Christian version of the chaos and dysfunctional hellions we were.

Our Ultra Old School Friend Anthony arrives. Victoria, Anthony, my pumpkin and I are waiting for the doors to open. She chain smokes out of habit, I chain smoke because I'm having a nervous breakdown.

We see Steve working, running up and down stairs, directing the artists, manning the mic. Paying the employees. Making sure everything's running smoothly. His wife is standing just inside the door, smiling a sin-less smile, encircling her six-month pregnant stomach with a delicate arm.

We are used to this state of affairs by now. It's no longer weird to see. But standing there on the steps with Victoria and Anthony something suddenly snaps into perspective. Steve nods to us through the glass front doors of the club. Lighting another cigarette, I shake my head. Steve.

Me: I went to the prom with him.

Victoria: I lost my virginity to him.

Anthony: I think Vic wins that round.

::pause::

Anthony: Though the prom is kind of a big deal.

Victoria: Yeah, but Steve wore my pants to her prom.

Me: Okay. You get that one.

I'll confide in you. The reason I'm having the nervous breakdown is not the pumpkin or the pregnant wife or feeling out of place in my home base. It is the presence of Andrew Bird, who is presently digging his violin out of his van a dozen feet to my left. I am pale and shaking. Victoria exhales and nods toward me coolly. "You gonna be okay?" But she understands. She and Anthony continue catching up about some recent news, and I can't hear a word they're saying.

Andrew lilts past me, all air and distance, leaving a wake of feathers in his path.

I carried a pumpkin?

Jon Rodgers, Steve's brother, is opening for Andrew Bird. He appears in the doorway for the first time, his glow filling the entire parking lot. I want to ladle the energy out of him and spackle it to my skin. He is radiant and frenetic, as always. He tells me excitedly about the quartet he's writing, that he's playing piano, learning violin. Jon's been playing guitar since age seven. That's all he's been doing. Half the time he forgets to eat. He wakes up every morning and says, "Yay! I get to play today! What do I want to play with?"

The depth of my love for Jon is wordless. I love him infinitely in ways I cannot even explain. He has been a piece of me for ten years. He is a miracle and a genius, and just to be around him ignites my mind. I walk away bursting with creativity. I want to breathe him in and make him part of me. Sharing his air is never enough.

Jon and I are talking about some things that have been on both of our minds lately -- connecting with people who you feel inside that you know, people you *get* -- and how unfortunate it is when you can't tell them. Because sometimes you see an artist you know you understand. You believe deeply that they could understand you as well, but you can't rightly walk up to that person and say, "Hey listen, you don't know me, but I get you. And you could get me." There might be a restraining order invoked.

Jon played with Bright Eyes awhile ago, spending time with Conor Obherst -- the half-insane enigma boy. It was a similar experience for him. It's unfortunate. Because I think artists need to hear that their work is affecting other artists so enormously. That they're putting so much of themselves out there that their inherent nature becomes clear to someone else, someone they might not even know.

When you see someone you understand, and you know that you have something wise and wonderful to offer them as well... what do you do with that?

Jon left Robert A. Heinlein's book Stranger in a Strange Land in New Orleans a few years ago when he knew I'd be passing through there during my travels. He wanted to share it with me. I understand Heinlein's use of the word "grok" -- to know, feel, understand and be one with another person all at the same time.

There are people in our lives that we know socially who we can confess such feelings to in a safe environment. Though even then it can be misconstrued and make social interactions uncomfortable. Especially when there's a male/female dynamic involved. But I don't say things to get people into bed. I say them because they're true.

So we're having this conversation excitedly on the steps of the Space, and I brandish the pumpkin. "Wow! You brought me a pumpkin!" Neither of us is sure why.

Later Jon confesses to giving the pumpkin to a couple of kids who were begging for it outside the club. They really, really wanted it, and he told them they couldn't smash it. They said no -- they wanted to take it home and carve it. It brought him such joy to give it to them. Maybe that's the same reason why I gave it to him.

I assert the obvious and tell Jon that Andrew Bird is here and I don't know what to do with myself. "Yeah, he's really great, isn't he?" But I'm not sure that he *gets* it.

Yet.

Four thousand cigarettes later, Victoria and I stumble into the Space and claim the seats she has knocked over several good Christians for -- front row center. I sit back and put my feet up against the stage. Jon wanders out under the amber lights, holding the neck of his Guild, brown bangs covering his right eye. He sits on his stool and his violinist tunes her instrument and they begin.

Jon is churning scales, movement, spinning chord changes... he is scampering fist and haunches toward some enormous wall, wailing up against it, shouldering to break free -- scrambling tooth and nail to the top and rejoicing in that victory before reeling into vertigo from dancing on the ledge. He gives us thirty minutes of his brilliant mind and then humbly leaves the stage with a wide, child-like grin.

Then Andrew lands in his halo of light with golden lips and silver fingers.

With Victoria's hard fought and won seating arrangement, he is standing ten feet from us. There is so much humanity to this guy I hail as godly -- up close I can see him do such human things tonight, but he still never becomes ordinary. I saw him perform for the first time after years of long-distance love just a few weeks ago at the Middle East in Cambridge. There was a million people, voices, smoke and laughter between us. Here there was dead silence. Clean air. And very little space.

He plays the songs I know note for note. His stories are silly and non-sensical. He is weirdly funny. One of his songs that sounds so dark and painful he tells us is actually about a scientist who is trying to answer the question of why kids are so mean. In the end, he gets the answer from a Sesame Street episode, "disturbing as that may be."

He finishes with, "No apocolypse in this song... even if there will be snacks."

While he's playing, he seems confused about which instrument he's supposed to be picking up next. His guitar is slung across his back and his violin pressed to his chest as he sings, playing the xylophone. When he switches from one to the other, the top of the guitar smashes against the ceiling. He chuckles. "Whatever money I save by not having a band I compensate for by breaking instruments."

I see all the human details that still never manage to bring him down for me: I can see him work his effects pedal between the monitors. I watch him remove his powder blue Adidas by stepping on the heels, exposing little black socks that are on slightly sideways. He stretches an arched foot toward the buttons to add delay, to loop his violin. He writes a symphony alone on stage. I see his ferociously delicate canine teeth as he sings and the freckles on his nose. I hear him screw up the song, stumble on the lyrics, and forget which instrument he has recorded on his effects processor. But whenever he opens his eyes and looks out from his world, they are unfocused, turned in on their own radiance. He is not seeing us.

His whole existence is ethereal and haunting.

I know after the show that I have to tell him all of these things -- that I want to live in his wrought iron and velvet candle world, that I want to roll around in the magic of that sound. That I want to be a part of all that flight.

I have to tell him. I put my hand on his arm softly and he turns to me. "That was brilliant. You're magical. I won't be able to listen to anything else for days. Thank you for making such beautiful music."

He listens to me carefully as I tell him this, my right hand pressed to my heart as I do when I'm overwhelmed. He listens to me like I'm talking about someone else, like he's watching me from far away. There is no reaction, no recognition on his face. Just the look of white clouds in a blue sky. The corners of his beautiful mouth turned up in a faint smile.

After a minute I leave him, satisfied.

I explode out of the club into the cool night and Jon is running past me in the opposite direction, post-show blissed out, shining. I can't speak. My hand is still pressed to my heart. Jon stops halfway down the stairs and turns back to me, saying with delight, "Andrew scares me!"

I smile, understanding.

We get him.

I was hoping rock and roll could save me last night.

I was not let down.

When my head is exhausting me and my heart is full, I drag my ass to a show and it's like being baptized. If the music has enough movement, I'm carried away, out of my brain that spins in its manic little circles. I'm drawn out. The volume quiets me.

Last week I planned on going to see Longwave play at TT the Bear's. While talking to a friend who was planning on going to see a different band that night, we discovered that they were playing the same venue. The band he was going to see was opening up for the band I was going to see. So we went to see them both.

Longwave had an awful lot of pomp and circumstance for four kids playing to a small crowd at a scrappy venue. The lead singer thought he was Peter Murphy with a red afro, but after hitting his head on the ceiling while attempting to leap meolodramatically off the drum kit, he wished he had an ounce of Murphy's cool. Following 20 minutes of violently generated feedback, the guitar player broke a few strings, unstrapped, and beat the vintage Vox stack with his gorgeous Les Paul for absolutely no good reason. Then he ran away. The rest of the band exited the stage petulantly after their half hour set, stepping past the overturned amps and abandoned instruments.

I wasn't the least bit disappointed that they sucked unapologetically because the band that played before them, the Damnwells, are now my Absolute Favorite Band.

This week.

The whole damn bunch of them goes on my Must Make Him Breakfast list, which, come to think of it, is growing quite long.

They played early at TT's and it was the night with the snow. I mean, we do get a decent amount of snow here, but it was like three feet and still coming down. Either because of the snow or the fact that everyone else knew Longwave sucked, there was only a few dozen people in the club when we got there. But the Damnwells came on, and rocked every single one of us from the first song. By halfway through their set the place was filling up, and the energy was palpable.

The Damnwells play well-crafted, catchy rock and roll with big guitars. Loud crunchy stuff, and the vocals are delicious. Alex Dezen plays around with some subtlely strange intonation that makes me smile. They use unusual tunings, and there are lots of capos involved. Strings all over the place. I was highly impressed and brought home a CD for a little happiness-to-go. Commence obsessive listening, in my traditional style.

So I have a new shower song. This one is stuck, let me tell you. It's called "Sleepsinging". Like any good shower song, it begins playing in my head upon waking and continues until I find myself singing it distractedly while doing mundane tasks at work. I've listened to the CD three thousand times since Thursday, and I can't get enough of it. I want to eat it. They even have a great band logo. It's a yield sign with a heart on it. Like, "Careful -- love!"

The Damnwells played again last night at the Lizard Lounge, and of course, I had to go. They're from Brooklyn, so who knows when I'll get to see them again.

I was not in a good mood last night. In fact, it was one of the nights when I'm begging to be saved inside the music, through the drawing out and cleansing that only a live show offers me. It's the one time during my day that I don't have to swim in the bullshit in my brain that drives me insane. I can let go and float. This is why I go see so many freakin bands.

Sometimes, like last night, I wish I could make noise that big, and really throttle it out on a guitar with three other people, bang bang bang and explode at the mic, and not just come home to stroke these petty words and fumble about with adjectives. It's the difference between attacking emotions with a jackhammer or prying them apart with tweezers. Catharsis comes slowly with sentences. It's overwhelming and all at once with music. Song is visceral. Writing is cognitive. Although it's always the first place I turn, some nights words offer me no release.

The opener was Dawn Landes, who also played at TT's, although I didn't have a chance to listen then. Last night I was captivated by her. My mind state plays such an important part in how I experience a band, a show… I went last night to be saved, like I said. I wandered into that club feeling broken and torn open, begging for some sign of hope. And this girl -- tiny, pixielike -- takes the mic with the voice of a silver studded dove, delicate and resilient, innocent but bruised. I immediately knew she wasn't going to be one of the whiney girlie singersongerwriters that have glutted the Cambridge market. She was different.

Her sound was haunting, ethereal, discordant. The guitar was so sparse; if you didn't listen carefully, you'd miss the jangling rhythms. I realized instantly that the music was bigger in her head; we weren't getting to hear the whole song. There was a symphony going on in that mind of hers, and we were privy only to a few finger-plucked bass notes. I was enchanted. These were love songs, but not of the painfully overdone somebody done me wrong variety. They felt like poking a dead thing with a stick, wanting to examine its horror but not touch it with your own hands. She was secure in her pain. Her music said, look, I'm fragile, I'm about to break, and you can watch if you want, but I'm okay. I've done this before. I may explode, but I can clean up my own mess. And there was so much strength and beauty in that.

Either I identified with her, or I'm projecting. Maybe a little of both.

The Damnwells came out and I was already prepped and practically sobbing. I had instant smiles of gratitude for them. Smiles in the thanks for kicking my ass I need it tonight way. I was grateful to be feeling someone else's pain for a change. They are passionate, without pretension or irony. I want to climb inside their music and run around. At the end of the first song, the lead singer snapped something and apologized afterward. "We're a rock and roll band, so shit breaks all the fucking time." I think that's when I realized I wanted to make him breakfast.

A good show will always give me perspective. By taking me out of my head, I can look down at what's going on. Everything becomes right-sized. I'm reminded of this song an ex of mine put on a mix tape -- a techno song, and the sample in the beginning said, "There's the story about the bug that lived in the Oriental carpet. He had no idea how beautiful the carpet was. He just roamed around inside, never looking any higher, unaware of the beautiful colors and designs, unaware that there was a perfect pattern to everything. The reason we're here tonight is to get you up and above, above your bug's eye view. " A good show does that for me.

Maybe it's because sometimes I get in the present moment too deeply, get too absorbed in whatever problem du jour I'm picking at and dissecting, and I become unable to see movement. And in a song, there can be so much movement. Especially a break up song. Because before breaking up, there was a whole love affair, and it was intense enough to write a song about it ending. And apparently he's still breathing. It reminds me that people move on. We survive.

I was distraught enough last night to forget my camera, which is a bad sign. I wish I had pictures. I wish you could see them filling that stage with bare intensity. I wish you could see that half the band could stand on each other's shoulders and still not see eye-to-eye with me at six feet tall. I wish you could see what got me above that rug last night.

I walked into the Roxy and the theatre was silent and full. All eyes facing forward, everyone still. Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes wandered out holding a bottle of wine. The audience reacted like we were in church and Jesus himself had just entered stage right.

There something about going to an emo show that is like coming home. The crowd is young and sincere and mindful of each others personal space. Nobody talks during the performance. Up front, the crowd of kids was trying to make sure everyone was comfortable and could see. There were a dozen band members on stage, trying to organize themselves, but you could hear a pin drop in between songs. The walls would shake with enthusiastic applause and then the crowd would fall silent, trembling with anticipation for the next song. Every once in a while, a choked cry from an anguished boy would slice through the air: "CONOR! We love you!"

It is always "we."

I went up to the balcony to take photographs and I spotted the perfect alcove to shoot from -- right above the stage with nothing in the way. But when I got closer, I saw that the little nook was full. Everyone in that section was sitting on the floor with ample space around them, so that they could all see and still be comfortable. There was a reverence among these kids, and I could tell they waited in line outside the theatre to get in and then went up there and staked out this perfect vantage spot. I stepped up to the entrance of the alcove and smiled hesitatingly at one of the girls who guarded the entryway, holding up my camera slightly. She guided me in and I took a few shots from the only place in the whole theatre with a view not sullied by heads or shoulders. After a minute or two, another girl behind me came up and gently put her hand on my arm and whispered, "I’m sorry -- I can't see." So I apologize, took one more picture and left the balcony. It was that kind of show.

I saw Conor Oberst play solo at the Coolidge Corner Theatre a few years ago, and he tramped out barefoot with an acoustic guitar and sat in the middle of the empty stage on a wooden chair. He banged on the guitar and wailed for almost an hour and then stalked off stage with his dirty hair shielding us from his insanely intense eyes.

A small version of Bright Eyes played the Somerville Theatre in May, and that show was moving but differently so. It felt strange. Somerville Theatre is kind of old and weird anyway, with wrought iron owls and lush, heavy crushed red velvet curtains. Conor was raging around the stage in a wrinkled black suit that was too big for him, and his band consisted of four girls in vintage prom gowns. The lights were red and purple. I kept waiting for fake snow to accompany the waltzes he twirled out of the piano.

The Roxy was warm and intimate. Conor is violently temperamental so it's hard to know what kind of show it's going to be. But he was downright jolly Tuesday night. He sauntered out onstage with his open bottle of red wine and greeted us. There were so many people on stage it was like a party -- and we were all invited. They played the new album in what I believe was its entirety, Lifted, or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.

They also played some of my older favorites, including "Something Vague," which I think is my favorite Bright Eyes song. The bottle of wine got progressively lighter, and Conor's tongue slightly looser. Mid-song he abandoned the mic to retrieve his nearly-empty bottle. After taking a swig, he strummed a few messy chords with it on his guitar until the sax player yanked the bottle from his grip. Toward the end of the set, some of the players made their way off stage, and he says, "So we're going to play a new song. We'll probably fuck it up, but oh well. Here we go." Hearing new material is like hanging out in his living room. He'll start the song and then stop halfway and say, "Sorry -- I fucked it up. Try it again. Two… three… four…" And the second time it will sound just as good.

The new album is brilliant, and easily one of the best I've heard this year. I have an overwhelming urge to detail how and why it is so groundbreaking and amazing, but it doesn't really matter what I think. I suggest people sit down with headphones and listen to the album beginning to end. Hell, I recommend doing that with Fevers and Mirrors or Letting Off the Happiness as well. Sit and listen with an open mind. Each album is a story, in perfect order, from beginning to end. A cohesive whole. Listen to the lyrics, the classical influences, the dozens of instruments he plays, the ambient basement recording techniques, what this kid has seen in his 22 years. Take it in. And then you can decide if he makes you uncomfortable, if you squirm because it's too intense or because his voice is grating and quivers uncontrollably, or because you are bored. I don't think Bright Eyes is easily digested, and I certainly don't think everyone would find it accessible or enjoyable. It may even be an acquired taste. But the music does speak to some people, and it speaks loudly. I guess I happen to be one of those people.

As the closing song, they played the epic "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to be Loved)." Before they started, Conor took a minute and put a hand up to the microphone and looked out at us from under his dark forelock. The audience completely stopped moving, waiting for him to speak. He said, "So listen, this next song is about how if this world continues to go in the direction it's going, we're going to be seriously fucked. And the only ones who can do anything about it are the intelligent and the young. So let's make some changes." And he smiled and everyone cheered and Bright Eyes broke out into the dark but celebratory tune about politics, suicide and network news.

After the show I'm glowing. I'm filled with the desire to do exactly what I love, because I know if I do, I've got a good chance of connecting with at least one other like-minded person. I am inspired to say fuck the critics, including my internal one, and follow what my heart tells me is the right direction to grow in. Cause I'm sure there was more than one person along the way telling this angry 22-year-old boy from Nebraska with the voice of a strangled dove that he wouldn't amount to shit. But at his sold-out show he sings,

"I do not read the reviews. I am not singing for you."

Friday the Thirteenth

The moon and sun have aligned with Mercury in an attempt to undermine my music-seeking pursuits on this unluckiest of days. Disappointment strikes from all angles like so much lightning from the hand of Antirocus, the God of Keeping Kristin From Shows.

My horoscope says:

You will face many disappointments today in the world of concerts, including unavailable tickets, exorbitant fees, and being stranded on the edge of Boston Harbor forever because you haven't figured out how to drive and read a map simultaneously.

It seems Antirocus is fucking with me this week, and I'm left stamping my feet, squealing defiantly, and shaking little fists at the sky for three valid reasons.

• 1. Ani DiFranco sold out. In 30 seconds. Before I could get tickets.

• 2. Bright Eyes did not sell out, probably because the "convenience" charge doubled the price of the ticket. Come on, people -- seriously now. What seemed like a twelve-dollar treat turned into pure BOHICA* once Tickemaster pulled out. Who lets them get away with this rape? Really?

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Wait -- I got one more.

• 3. My favorite band in the world**-- Jump, Little Children -- is playing in November in New York City and I can't go. Despite bribes, begging, black magic, offers to pay for crack and whores, and subconscious hypnosis, I have been unable to convince anyone else that they need to go to this show as much as I do. Judging by my bad luck, poor sight, and inability to drive from Boston to Cambridge without getting lost, I should not attempt the journey alone.

The whole concert world sucks today. I'm feeling pouty, bratty, and let down.

I'm going to spend the night in my darkroom snorting chemicals and maybe emerge with some decent negatives. Or maybe I'll spend the night in the dark snorting chemicals and develop my film tomorrow.

_____________________________________

*I'm not sure if this is an acronym recognized anywhere outside the world of Mighty Purple. It may be something drummer Wil Mix made up: "Bend Over -- Here It Comes Again." Appropriate for those who continually get screwed by the same thing. It was also the name of their second album. A handy phrase -- especially when you're trying to go see a band you like and can't get tickets.