18.6.09 8.44pm
Being with a man who has lived a good, full life has many unexpected benefits. One that had me jumping around the room tonight was his record collection. Here are a few reasons why:
Hawks and Doves (Neil Young)
Back in Black (one copy was pressed in Australia and is quite rare)
Rumours (Fleetwood Mac)
Harvest (Neil Young)
A couple of others I set the needle onto included The Church, Gangajang, Do Re Mi and The Clash ...
Okay, so that was more than a few - the boy has milk crates stacked with vinyl. Records. They are tactile and real and my fingers tingle when I pull them out of their plastic slips and lay them down on the turntable. The boy and I had been talking about one of the strongest foundations of our relationship thus far – music. We met on a night dedicated to soul music and we're on the same page when it comes to what tunes we pepper our days and nights with.
So we began comparing concert stories after I had given him an unabridged version of what was Wednesday night which has turned out to be a highlight of my life, musically speaking (yes, there are many lives – music, reading, film, cars, typewriters etc.). Last night I saw something that I never thought I would get to see in my lifetime – Simon and Garfunkel live - and no further than ten metres away. These 'Old Friends' punctuated my childhood, adolescence and beyond - something which has essentially shaped me, like a plane on a surfboard to give it a decent curve.
My sister and I listened to Simon and Garfunkel in utero and my father courted my mother with their songs and would serenade her with ‘Sparrow’, 'The Boxer', 'El Condor Pasa' and ‘Scarborough Fair'. My parents have been waiting since the early days of their courtship to see Paul and Arty live and on Wednesday night they were reminiscing and holding hands. My sister and I agreed that it was nothing short of adorable. The first LP my father ever bought was 'Wednesday Morning, 3am’, closely followed by ‘The Graduate', which also happens to be his favourite film.
From beginning to end, the night was really quite extraordinary. Unto Rosco’s (Dad's) knowledge, my brother-in-law had organised a brand spankin’ new, eleven seater limousine to transport us to my sister’s and said brother-in-law’s house in style. We collected them for a night of overwhelming sentiment and reaction and thus began a night of *perfection*.
Murray, our driver for the night made us feel very loved and welcome - thanks Muzza! He had Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Live in Central Park’ DVD playing and gave us a directive to crank the (kick arse) sound system as we deemed suitable, and crank it we did. We took stupid, funny photos of ourselves in this cavernous car and by the time we got to Nik’s, we were really just warming up. My four nephews had to practically scoop their jaws off the ground when we arrived. They each had a climb through and marvelled at the buttons and funky lights. They took turns sitting in the driver's seat where Murray commandeers and steers this monster of an automobile, then Rosco basically had to drag poor little Sammy out so we could get on the road. Dad is convinced that Sam's first words will be, ‘I hate you, Grandad’. Que sera.
Nik and Paulie hopped in, we cracked some Becks, toasted the awesomeness that is Simon and Garfunkel and cranked the music. Now this was an extra special night for my Dad because he’s turning 60 next week. Did I mention that he bought himself an early birthday present in the form of a 1959 XK150 Jag? No? Well he did. Happy birthday, Rosco! I shall post some photographs of the beast when I remember.
I haven’t seen my Dad this excited for a very long time and he did totally unexpected and random things at the concert which I’ll get to later. So we’re still in the limo on our way to the hole that is the Boondocks (so very happy AC/DC is playing at ANZ stadium), all the while playing musical seats. Well, Mum, Nikki and I were, anyway. The boys sat up the end sucking back Becks and talking about man stuff. I’m guessing that that means they were talking about man flu, the price of beer, cars and asking questions like, ‘why do they do that?’ about us three who were sliding up and down each end of the limo taking crazy pictures. Because we’re crazy like three foxes. Or something.
The last time I was at the Boondocks was with my bro-in-law last February when Santana came to town. Santana were sublime and it was go good to see Carlos rockin’ out, much like Carole King did at her concert a couple of years ago. The woman has still got it. We decided to make a reservation for dinner on our way which was possibly the best decision of the evening because we ended up a little smashed. Smashed and at Santana. It was fucking great. But back to playing musical seats ...
We arrived at the Boondocks where the place was crawling with equal parts baby boomer and lapsed beatniks (my folks fall into both groups for which I am
PROUD) and young folk, mostly Generation Xers. As we ascended the stairs, we literally ran into two women who had travelled interstate to see their heroes and man, were they living the dream. The mean half of my brain would say that it looked like Woodstock had vomited all over them, but the kind half of my brain was saying ‘interstate woman number one is a massive tie-dyed swathe of fabric and her friend has magenta coloured hair and is wearing bright yellow platform fuck me boots – COOL!’ And they were cool. Having waited thirty years to see these two prodigal sons from New York, nothing was going to stop these ladies. They had dressed to make an impression and that they did ...
I was wearing my folk vest in honour of Art Garfunkel’s penchant for all things vestie, so imagine my surprise (after I had stopped crying tears of joy) when I realised that there was
NO VEST. No vest? Me publicly crying? Stranger things have happened. No, wait – they haven’t. I don’t do public crying. I’ve done it once this year, but would have called my personal integrity into question if I hadn’t when I found myself in the situation I did. I cried the other day when one of my closest friends told me she was pregnant, but that’s not really public crying because it was just with her and my Mum, and it was induced through joy.
But I digress (again). We walked down to our seats and we were all of nine rows from front of stage
*scoops up jaw off floor*. We knew we had seats of superiority, but this was just insane. The audience went
ballistic when they trundled onstage, and when Art placed his hand on his heart, the lump in my throat rose up and into me like a tide and my cheekbones ached as it surged up to my head.
‘Old friends’ is the name of their current – and sadly, their last – tour, and so it was this revelation of a song that began a night of magic. As any aficionado would know, ‘Old Friends’ leads into ‘Bookends’. As fast as the tears of awe dried and fused to my salty cheeks, the rush came again when Paul Simon began picking through those familiar notes with his guitar.
There is a story behind ‘Bookends’, because there is always a story. In February 1996, I lost one of my close friends to infection which lead to multiple organ failure. The night cut through all of us who were with Michelle when she died in Intensive Care after she went into cardiac arrest - something she was never going to recover from. Michelle was a heart-lung transplant recipient and was with us for five years which for both her and us, was never going to be enough. She was to be married in the April and I was to be one of her bridesmaids, so instead of a wedding, there was a funeral. Michelle, in her stubborn nature, singlehandedly organised the first Cystic Fibrosis ball in 1990. She was a Mama Bear in the C.F family. The year she died, I was asked to be guest speaker at the ball and by that stage, my Mum had been organising the C.F Ball since the second in 1991. Mum put together a photo montage of Michelle that was presented after my speech, which was essentially a tribute to Michelle, and the song Dad suggested was ‘Bookends’.
'Time it was and what a time it was, it was,
a time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.'It was a night so raw with equal parts pain and love, people bled a little. Michelle's fiance was there, as were several of the people who were with her when her life support was withdrawn. That was the 11th February 1996. My grandmother was in the same hospital dying of cancer, so I was moving between floors that night, though it felt more akin to moving between worlds. My grandmother died the next day on the 12th February. It was a difficult week. Two deaths, one day of reprieve, then two funerals.
Now getting back to Simon et Garfunkel, what struck me was how repressed the audience was. People were just sitting, barely tapping their feet. We were
on our feet, yelling and woohoo-ing; we were applauding with arms high over our heads. Dad was totally enarmoured and would stand and clap and wave and shout 'MORE'!
Then there was the sit dancing. Sit dancing is an art I like to believe I pioneered - though I'm fairly certain I did not - but hey, I took it and owned it well before I was on the transplant list. There were just some nights where I was too sick to get on the dance floor with my friends and get on down for a boogie, so my friends would find a chair/stool/tabletop for me to sit on and they would dance around me – kind of like my own little harem which brings me to how I will never understand how people can stay still when a there's a killer tune playing. We talked about the repressive nature of the Brisbane audience in the ensuing autopsy of the night of wonder. It’s not the first time I’ve seen people sitting in their seats like mannequins at a concert. There is little wonder why Rod Stewart got the shits with Brisbane when he last toured. As hard as he tried to work the room, people just weren’t responding. Thank gumdrops Wednesday night concert goers
did , though there were still quite a few uptight twats who just couldn't cut loose ...
And so the boy and I talked about music and how it can run like a freight train through your heart. He gets it. He gets me. Nothing is too much trouble. He isn’t going to freak out and cower in a corner like a child if or when I get sick.
Slow burns are better than a flash fire, just like a tide is far friendlier than a flood.
I can’t wait to take him to see The Wilson Pickers and The Gin Club. I want to share with him what he’s shared with me. So as I sit here with a cup of tea, listening to some vintage Santana, I look to the cratefuls of vinyl and one of his surfboards, almost pinching myself with the last couple of days and indeed, about what I have here right now.
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