Go Forth

I'm more than a bit envious of people who got to see Jimi perform live. I'm sitting here listening to The Verve's "Forth" that came out yesterday marvelling at the studio production. This is the first time I've gotten to hear new songs from an epic band live before they were released on a studio album. My wife and I got lucky enough to see them in London and Vegas. They played the first song on the album, "Sit and Wonder", at both shows and the second song in Vegas. There are differences, refinements, on the album, but I feel most privileged to have witnessed firsthand the evolution of great music.

I think that's the deal with stories. That's why legally you need 1st person accounts to consider an event fact. A human can only convey their interpretation of an experience in their life, pieces thereof really. To put stock in a story degraded by the filtering through a second human, forget about it.

So, "you had to be there" isn't poppycock. Being front row in London to see a band you thought was broken up for good is ineffable. The emotional connection I somehow feel to The Verve now is non-transferable. My spine tingles and tears obscure my sight listening to "Love Is Noise".

Yes that happens with other music, of course, but hearing this album makes me feel something all-encompassing. All senses have memories of this. You can recount in detail events of your life, but it is nigh impossible to cause another to feel what you felt.

That's why I tear up when narrator Emma Thompson says Will Ferrell "lived his life" in "Stranger Than Fiction".

I hope you live yours.

Peace.