let the music play...

one of my new year's resolutions this year was to see more live music - i am lucky enough to live in a city that has a lot of music venues and have felt like i never fully took advantage of that. so, this past weekend, i caught a wye oak show friday night at the black cat, and then saw grace potter and the nocturnals at the 9:30 club the following night. wye oak was sort of an "on a whim" thing, i picked up a free download card at starbucks (which is also how i found out about the civil wars, who i am now obsessed with) and liked the song enough to download a couple more on itunes. so i had heard a little of their music, but not much, and they kicked ass live, so i was really glad i'd seen on facebook that they were playing in dc and scored tickets before they sold out. i've been listening to grace potter for a while now, and i'd seen them once before and knew it would be a good show...and my god, they did not dissapoint me. grace's voice and her presence on stage are both pretty overwhelming and i don't know about you, but for me there is just something about that feeling i get when the lights go down and the band comes out...everything else in the world ceases to be important. when you can feel the music hit you in that space between your heart and your throat...that is the good stuff and i clearly need to have that in my life more often. they played a song she'd written about her grandmother before she died, and having just gone through that last year, i will admit i got a little choked up. it does amaze me how much of the human experience is universal - we all experience different forms of love and loss - but how people can get up on a stage and open up their lives to a room full of complete strangers is just beyond me. i am certainly thankful for it, though. in a way it kind of makes you feel less alone in whatever you're dealing with...because no doubt, someone else has experienced something similar and had the wherewithall to write it down and put some music behind it. and i can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to have that room full of strangers singing the words to your heartache or your happiness, because they know exactly what you mean.

anyway, the point of all of this is that i got to see some awesome shows this weekend and i'm already looking forward to the next one. if only all of my new year's resolutions were this easy (or this enjoyable)...