now and then

On Saturday night, almost a week ago, 14 thousand people gathered to listen to music, sing, yell and sway together for the Coldplay concert. Although I have always been a music fan I have always been a bit reserved when it comes to live concerts. So often I have gone to a concert with all the hype and fanfare only to feel some amount of disappointment - the band was too small to see because of where our seats were or the sound in the venue was terrible and everything sounded like a karaoke night gone bad or the band, despite their CD's sounding amazing, just really couldn't sing at all in real life.

This was not the case on Saturday. In fact, I am still walking around, humming Coldplay tunes and remembering how it felt to be with so many people who were all completely committed to the event. There was a special, electrical feeling to the evening that I can't quite put my finger on. Was it the warmth of the summer evening? Was it the gathering of old friends? Was it the music? the singing? the intimate setting despite the huge crowd?

Whatever it was, has left me feeling nostalgic. Thinking about my six or seven tapes and records that I played over and over again as a kid (Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Trouble Water, Blondie - Heart of Glass, Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb - Guilty, Bee-Gees, ABBA and some Moody Blues). The black and white stereo system that my parents bought for me with the record player (with the bent arm that started the record up high and dropped it down to the turn-table) along with the eight-track player was the best $75 my parents ever spent. Thanks guys.

I was reading today about how our sense of smell is the sense that creates the strongest memories or connections to the past. I totally agree with this but would also imagine that our hearing and our memories connected to sounds or songs are also incredibly strong.

Ratty and I often play this game where we will rattle off what a song reminds us of. It is amazing the memories that will "pop" up when we hear a song from 25 years ago. We were in a store the other day and all of a sudden Ratty said "grade seven. rollerskating" because he had heard the cords of a song playing in Shoppers Drugmart (Eye of the Tiger). Both of us ALWAYS say, almost in unison "elementary school dance, slow song, shuffling side-to-side" when we hear any classic Air Supply song.

Twenty-five years from now, when I hear "and I will try, to fix you..." coming from some random music source, I am sure I will remember in amazing detail that night, June 19th 2009 when a bunch of old friends headed downtown on a warm and breezy summer night to watch, sing along and dance with Coldplay.