Babble On

 Note: Originally written and posted on Facebook on August 17, 2009

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Before I start going into the raptures that will ensue, let me first say that none of it would've been possible if the lead of my current project had not kindly agreed to let me have the Saturday off after a major milestone. We have a decent sized team, and it seemed likely when he acquiesced that much of the milestone work would be done by the Friday deadline. Turns out it wasn't...I received a text message telling me the test team was finally leaving at 3:07am on Sunday morning, after the team had been at work since 11:00am on Saturday...without me. So yeah, I owe them big time. Mind you, I did miss out on all that juicy overtime, so it's a bit of a fair trade.

But I digress. The events of Saturday must be told.

My sister-in-law Molly and I had tickets for a concert occurring at Marymoor Park in Redmond, hosted by our local KMTT 103.7FM...aka "'The Mountain." We also had tickets to the Mountain's Slumber Party prior to the Music Fest, which involved a pre-funk, prime seats at the show, and an overnight stay at the hotel that hosted the pre-funk. It was billed as "A Day of Acoustic Music," and Molly and I each had our reasons for attending. She for Howie Day and Ingrid Michaelsen, and I for Ingrid and David Gray.

Oh, David Gray.

For those of you who haven't been lambasted upside the head with my passion for the artist, let me sum up. I came across this video for "Babylon"...arguably his most famous song...

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while roaming across the seemingly thousands of satellite channels my stepdad had at his place out of town. I was staying at home for the summer of 2000, waiting until I could move to Ellensburg and start classes at CWU, and was enjoying the unusual (for me) TV access. It happened to be on, and something...to this day I still don't what...made me pause the clicking and listen.

I was on the computer immediately, attempting to find out as much as I could about the song, the artist, the album...and as I've stated many times, I'm really not a whole album enthusiast at heart. But I found a website that had snippets of all of the songs on "White Ladder" and tested them all out. (Keep in mind this was before iTunes...at least, for me.) It was enough to make me hit the music store the next day and buy the disc, and I honestly don't think it left the car CD player once afterward.

Fast-forward slightly to 2001, when I left Central to care for Mom here in Seattle. To and from the clinics, the hospital, the groceries, the medical supplies...I listened it constantly, sang along 'til I was hoarse. I've never had an album do that before...and it somehow became support and comfort and wonder in that hard time without my growing to dislike it for the memories it held, afterward.

Fast-forward again. The new album, "A New Day at Midnight," comes out. The first single, at least in our area as I knew it, was an odd choice. Somber, full of doubt and searing pain...he'd always been profound, but this was intensely personal, and so unlike the songs that get chosen for airplay. It touched a nerve, and that was before finding out why. He too had lost a parent to cancer...this album seemed to be the aftermath and expulsion of grief, mingled with the joy of the birth of his first child. It was uncanny.

Third time forward...I'm browsing through a new- and used- CD store in Lynnwood and come across two albums of his I hadn't seen before. I picked them both up, but instantly devoured "Lost Songs" and left the other fallow. There wasn't room for them both in me at the time, I think. And on "Lost Songs," besides the entire disc, once again, being listenable from start to finish, I find a song that I recognize, immediately and unequivocally, as being the song to which I will walk the aisle. And the song that will lead in the bridesmaids first. :)

I'm not sure how I feel about one artist having such a deep and instant connectivity to the major moments of my life, some of which have yet to actually occur. LOL. Or maybe I'm just glad that there is proof I don't have musical ADD.

So you can imagine that I was very excited about seeing him do a song or two at the pre-funk, as well as most of the rest of the Mountain's bill...we got to see Barcelona, Mieko, Ingrid M, and Howie as well, two or three songs a piece, about ten feet away. Pretty great stuff. Ingrid Michaelsen is hilarious in a sexy, slightly dippy, fiercely intelligent librarian sort of way...her on-stage patter had me rolling, and she gave Jodi Brothers (from the Mountain morning show) a run for her money on the 80's TV theme song competition. And she sings like an angel. My god, the pipes on that woman.

Molly took some time out from being the best concert and pre-funk-going companion a girl could have to terrorize me by volunteering me to read an announcement, ON AIR, for Marty and Jodi's broadcast. It's the kind of thing I would secretly love to do, but would never be brave enough to actually ask to do it, so she really did me a favor, even though the pulse was pounding up until the moment I opened my mouth in front of the mic. I made it through without any slips (that I remember) and know at least ONE person I texted who heard it. LOL.

After the party, we clambered on the kind of bus I used to take on band trips and rolled over to Marymoor. Mo and I grabbed some kielbasa, wandered a bit in the sun, and then sat down to start the show....I was having a fantastic day, at a lovely venue, in gorgeous weather, with a dear sister-friend...it couldn't get any better, could it?

Imagine my thrill and terror when Molly ostensibly returns from the bathroom mid-way through the show to hand me a strip of paper with David's picture on it, the words Silver Platters emblazoned on the top, and the grinning announcement that she not only pre-ordered his new CD for me, but in doing so ensured that I would get to MEET HIM in about an hour. 7:00pm, line up by the merch booth, 10 people at a time for a hand shake and photo op.

Mouth agape. Flummoxed. Completely at a loss for words. And so very EXCITED!!!!

The time came, and I lined up along with the roughly 300 *other* VERY EXCITED people, and we waited. And moved the line away from the port-a-pots. And waited. Then we tramped through the food and beer garden, out the fence line to what looked like somebody's house on the edge of the park, and in to their personal, enclosed lawn space. (I'm guessing this was actually Marymoor's wedding rental facility? Or maybe the green room for the artists in general, since they do host a low ton of concerts every year.) Waited a little bit more, started counting off in tens, and then the cheering begins from the front of the line and we see movement under the patio awning.

It really was "no time for love, Dr. Jones"...walk up to him, shake his hand, line up for the pic, and then out the door. But it was lovely. I ended up being first in my portion of the ten-per, so I was the first to walk up to him, and he was exceedingly gracious and smiling to everyone, even when some d-bags insisted on taking personal pics with him after being told that was absolutely not allowed. One blowhard even said, "You don't mind, do you?" before shoving the camera in the air and throwing an arm around his shoulders. The return of the Ugly American...

I would've liked the chance to say something about what his art has meant to me, but at the same time, in a situation like that, what does it really mean? It's unlikely that the words that were said by any of us even registered, in all the commotion and hand after hand, face after face. And nobody wants to be "that fan"...maudlin and invasive and too much. So this blog will have to suffice as my fan letter, and my brief thanks during the handshake the placeholder for the larger feeling.

Such a great day.