(A)LIVE
celebrating live music memories
For me, bands
will always be linked to the time when I listened to them the most. Whether it was Pink Floyd in high school or Wintersleep at university, a big part of music listening is revisiting albums and thinking about what they meant to me at a certain period in my life. It’s easy enough to make this happen with headphones and laptops: you get into a band and they dominate your listening routine for months and even years; looking back is as easy as clicking a mouse. But there is one chapter of my life marked with live music. It’s July 2004, I’m 18 years old, and I’m at Tlell’s Edge of the World music festival. As usual, it’s roughly 800 hours behind schedule, and sometime after midnight the “between headliners” guy, a vaguely hobbit-like man from Sandspit, takes the stage with a black acoustic guitar. I’m standing in the audience with a crowd that is bizarre even by Northern B.C. festival standards but those closest to me are three guys I know well—my dad, my uncle and a good family friend. We’re eating ribs and corn on the cob from a festival vendor, it’s still warm outside and despite our collective sobriety, me and these dads are ready for more music. We’re in the zone. My whole life I’ve been attending festivals with these guys. They built my appreciation for music. They embrace the craziness that happens at places like Kispiox and Midsummer every year. The summer festivals are also one of the few real escapes from the social discomforts of 19 being a teenager. The more eccentric you can be, the better. Tonight is no different and all around us is the typical late night festival scene: a drunk, tired crowd waiting for one more blast of music to cap off the evening. Nobody is paying much attention as the guy from Sandspit picks through a bunch of baby boomer classics—his set is the eye of the festival hurricane, soothing people before things get exciting again. The songs he plays are the comfort food I grew up on. Having recently finished high school I’m unsure of what the future will bring. Soon I’ll be leaving the safety net of summer holidays and festival tabs picked up by my parents. In the middle of his set he breaks into Led Zeppelin’s Over the Hills and Far Away and I freeze to the spot. With the guitar picking and the rib eating, the company and the late hour, I sense something washing over me. I feel a rush of gratitude to my companions, to the festival scene, even to Led Zeppelin. His song makes me aware of being on the edge of something new and of the important effect these festivals have had on my life. Somehow, the hobbit man from Sandspit, and his side stage performance assured me that everything would be fine. I was ready, as Robert Plant said, to “gaze along the open road.” – AaronWilliams