Flying over the Grand Canyon fills me with melancholy. It’s just too much to take in. Not that it isn’t a marvel from above – on the contrary, I just wasn’t meant to see it from here. I was meant to look at its multihued grains of dirt and sand up close. I want to be there so bad! I want to feel the hot wind on my face and touch the ground. I want to see the bark of the tough pines and feel the puffy clouds press down from above with their 80’s optimism, the light filling me with “you are here” eternal never-ending nowness. It is the destination all postcards ever wished to be. It is the desert film with saturated color where time stands still that you want to live in forever. It is so sacred I don’t even blink at the notion of some natural intelligence guiding us and pushing us to and fro.
I am flying to Los Angeles from a show at the Botanic Gardens in Denver. It was truly lovely. Everyone came out to enjoy a warm night on the grass amidst beautiful pollinator magnet flowers and plants. (I am quite jealous of their foxtail lilies.) It was our first show back as the Neko Case band since February and I was very anxious. I haven’t put out a record in so long I don’t quite know what my relationship with my songs is. We are staring at each other from either side of a sliding glass door. I have been so busy writing and making music for other people and touring with the New Pornographers (not a complaint mind you…) my tank is a bit empty. Singing the songs at altitude for the first time in a while felt like a montage in Rocky where I train, sweat, stumble, get up, and then get in the ring – but with a gang, who are my beloved bandmates. They make it all possible with their positivity and skill. They start a wave of momentum which gets me most of the way there, bless them. The rest of the jogging and raw egg swallowing is up to me. It’s much nicer than I just made it sound...
There is a “thing” that happens on the first show day back after a long spell, which is a very distinct anxiety. It takes hold in the deadly 15 to 30 minutes before soundcheck, and then another right before show time. Those are the moments much of the bulk of Rock N’ Roll mythology is based on. Those are the moments you can’t leave; it’s happening, already in motion…
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