Connections

There is little in the world more intense for a music fanatic than making one-on-one connections with the musicians one admires. Usually, it proves more than difficult, because by the time one gets into a group's or individual's music, fame has put up a wall between fan and artist.
Most of us understand that barrier is for the protection of the artist. We lost John Lennon because of a lapse in that protection, a momentary belief that all was right in the world, and, well, morbidities aside, the Beatles reunion long dreamed of came to a screaming halt.

I have lucked out, as have some other fans around me, and met Del Castillo while things are still easy. The guys come out and do a "meet and greet" after nearly every gig, something which allows them to further touch the lives of newbies. Thankfully, they don't seem to mind being pestered by the "oldies" like me either. Trust is sometimes hard earned when one sees people from a band only at gigs, but that particular barrier seems to be thinning out for me. The talk now is not always about the gig that night, but other things in our lives that have similarity too. That is comforting to me somehow. It makes the guys a bit more real to me, and I hope, makes me a little more accessible to them. I love being able to call my favourite musicians friends. And though the eventual fame I expect to see them climb to may separate us for long periods, I am hopeful that they will remember that my hand is there when they need me.

Mushy stuff aside now, I had a pretty interesting weekend in Houston. The show was one of the most vivid, on-fire performances I have yet to witness. The guys, especially Mike, were just lit up from inside. Anyone who walked out of that gig untouched had to be deaf, or really really drunk. For the second time in as many gigs, the roar that came up from the audience at the end was astounding. I was encouraged by a crew member to help rev up the crowd, but I can tell you flatly, anything I did was probably unheard, save by those closest to me. I do apologize to those individuals (you know who you are, by the ringing in your ears!;); I have got a pretty good set of lungs and sometimes forget the volume I can reach. Comes from years of yelling over bands I worked with.
It was good to see Lobo playing guitar again. It had been awhile. There were also a couple of new tunes in the show, stuff that is not yet on any cd anywhere (ha! now there's incentive to get out and see these boys!) and a couple of older tunes I haven't heard since last year sometime. Though the crowd was, in my opinion, a touch disrespectful during it, I was very moved to hear " Suenos De Ti" in concert for the first time in a long, long time. A short, beautiful tune, I am afraid the subtleties may have been lost to a lot of folks. Don't stop playing though, guys. It is such a moving piece. I am rarely untouched by it, even on the CD.

I tell you what, I may have thought of drummers as insane (or at least nuts) before, but Mikie (Ze-o-li! Ze-o-li!) proved it to the whole crowd the other night! His playing was absolutely manic, and yet he had his usual edge of subtlety too. The hair-raising yell that came out of him during the usually fairly level "Spanish Castle" took me by surprise! And the cool part was that it charged up the others, which raised the level of the tune. It was funny watching all the guys turning to look at one another when the intensity would set one or the other off on a tangent. There was just such fire in the air, and later they all confessed they weren't sure where it came from either.

I have had the

silliest grin on my face for most of the last 15 hours.
Take a guess why.
Yeah, yeah, that Del Castillo band again.
Just when you'd think I would start being a little tired of the same songs, or maybe the traveling, or losing sleep one more weekend, these guys get all rev-ved up (no pun intended, Rev.) and blow me away again.

A-mazing.
That is the only word that works. I did squeal/scream at them a little after last night's gig, because one can only use the same words so many times before it starts to sound practiced and trite. I must not ever do that to these guys. I want them to know WITHOUT FAIL that my devotion to them, my obsession with the music, my insanity of running around this huge state almost as much as they do is directly due to what they do on that stage. I only wish, as a writer, that I could comb through this vast vocabulary of mine and find the right combination of words to come close to emoting what I feel when they are playing.
They stopped me dead in my tracks last night. I was running all over the place doing my best to get some good shots through an awkward stage layout, and they started a new song, "Si, Mi Amor." The drums, the harmonies, the guitar work(of course), the passion and concentration...I stood in one place for 95% of the tune, the dropped jaw on me creeping steadily into an ear-to-ear grin that may well be where the one on my face at the moment started. It was a freshly minted tune they were not too sure about and, my gods, if that is what they're like when they are hesitant about a piece of music, what the hey are they like when they feel they have a good one?!?!
It was an invigorating evening, to say the least. Little by little, the guys are finding out that, though I AM insane (about them) and a bit bombastic, I am also full of nothing but love for them. Angie and Phil and I ended up staying in the same hotel, which was not all that big a deal. While we did see them there, much of the connection time we got was actually before and after the show. We, or at least Angie and I, feel like we must come off as stalkers sometimes. It's that bit about wanting to touch the flame again I guess. Nothing in this life in the last five years has managed to touch me, move me, compel me back toward my own creativity as have these six men, their wonderful crew, tolerant management, tremendously understanding families, ...and that music.

I've managed to have conversations with all the members at one time or another, but lately, it has been stretching out into more indepth convos. Last evening was a long talk with Bert, back in A & P's hotel room, until bloody well 2 AM. Poor man! We had a tremendous talk about music from Bob Wills to Bauhaus and found such amazing common ground. It is astounding to me how much I share with these people in musical interest, the levels of involvement and curiosity, and the interest in still finding out more. We are all from very different time periods- I am 6 years older than Bert, and about a decade older than Angie and Phil- and different cultural inputs ( I watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in '64, Bert was stuck with AM radio for many years and P & A came into the music scene from a younger perspective than either of us) ...and YET...we still connected and wanted to continue . I think we would've talked for hours had it not started so late. Those are the kinds of connections I love making with anyone, but especially musicians I appreciate. Bert once introduced Rick as having two tons of soul, but I can tell you, Bert's got a fair amount himself. Well, hell, just listen to that bass line sometime. That will tell you mountains about him easily.

I really must go get some sleep before Monday morning creeps up on me unawares.