Hamilton Leithauser "Here They Come" Live at the Carlisle

This last year, a friend who has known me since before I lost all my baby teeth convinced me to take two days off from working and caregiving to meet her and some other friends at a music festival, something I hadn't done in a long time, since before kids and careers and shit. It was great. I've since made time for a few more shows, and standing shoulder-to-sweaty-shoulder with strangers all singing along to a song that feels personal or crowding into a weird tiny space to hear something experimental and new has all felt better and more necssary for my being than I remember it feeling. Maybe it's just community, communal joy--a novelty after March 2020. Maybe it's just what happens when you rediscover something that was a big part of your youth; I used to go to shows and festivals as regularly and with as much fervor as some people go to church. Probably I'm just waxing too poetic about the basic, elemental response to music, something even my toddler understands innately. Hearing good music with other people is good shit, and this is a good song. I've been listening to the album version for two years, and that can sometimes make a "live" version feel janky and strained or disappointing. But this is easy and fun and lovely. And anways, lately I crave the real and janky, if just as a reminder of all the above.