I'll never wash my shoulder again *sigh*

So, there was definitely moisture in my eyes Saturday night watching Jeremy Enigk but I don’t know if it was from tears or from the fact that I was having an extremely difficult time remembering to blink. The set – 17 songs long. About an hour and forty-five minutes of sheer genius.

This was the third time I have seen him play…once with Sunny Day Real Estate, once with the Fire Theft and then this time, solo plus band. I distinctly remember at the SDRE show six years ago not being able to take my eyes of Dan Hoerner, the guitarist. He literally played the entire set with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face and looked like he was genuinely having the time of his life on stage – that’s what I remember most about that show. To be honest, I don’t remember much about The Fire Theft show aside from several people in the crowd yelling out Nate Mendel’s name every now and again, I guess in appreciation of his taking time out of the Foo Fighters gig to join The Fire Theft on tour. What I can’t remember about either show, for some reason or another, is what Jeremy was like. What I thought I remembered was a fairly quiet, serious guy who didn’t address the crowd much, instead focusing on playing an amazing set.

What I saw Saturday night was an animated, goofy guy that gave thanks & expressed his gratitude to the audience between each and every song. Did I mention there were 17 of them? There were. He smiled, he laughed, he joked and even danced a little jig. He thrashed around the stage, banged hard on his piano, strummed even harder on his guitar and gave every ounce of his heart, soul and energy into making sure the experience was everything he and every person in the audience wanted it to be. He had to take several long pauses after the more energetic songs so he could catch his breath before launching into another mind-blowing piece. At one point I thought for sure both the keyboard and drum set were going to burst into flames and that the drummer's head was going to explode. Charles and I were both all smiles and the rest of the crowd was equally awed and very respectful and appreciative…not sure if Jeremy draws that out of people, if his fans are different from some other bands I’ve seen lately or if my recent experiences are more geographically related (meaning there weren’t any rednecks yelling “freebird!!! Woo hoo!!”).

The collective sound of the band was impeccable…all the instruments and vocals were at just the right mix to produce a beautifully loud (as opposed to ear-numbingly loud), complex, ear-smiling sound. Oh, and his voice? Perfect. Strong. Loud. Pure goodness. There have been one or two other times in my life where I have been to a concert and was able to completely lose myself in the music…the SDRE show was the first and it happened again Saturday night. You know what I mean? Where you close your eyes at some point and when you open them again time has elapsed but you’re not quite sure how much and you really don’t care. Your body continues to sway and your head continues to bob but your mind is somewhere else.

The venue, North Star Bar in Philadelphia, was the perfect size. As Keeva described it for us earlier in the day, it was a little larger than 10 High in Atlanta with a stage setup like Tasty World in Athens. We were standing right in front of the middle of the stage and just about eye-level with the band as we were in the very front of the second level, just a few steps up from the main floor.

Sorry to ramble – I could go on as I didn’t even touch on the fact that both Charles and I brushed up against Jeremy’s shoulder and shared drinks right next to him at the bar, but this is wordy enough.

Needless to say, this was the best show of my life, and I have seen a lot of really, really great shows. It was definitely worth making the trip up to Philly (I’ll post more about our time in the city later) and far surpassed all my expectations. Thank you, Charles, for everything!

ps...if you've been wondering whether or not Santa would be headed your way for Christmas, I saw him & mrs.claus at Hartsfield on Monday so he must have been scoping out atlanta's naughty & nice. He's a little shorter in person than i thought he would be but he definitely had the "bowl full of jelly" thing going on. Wish i could've snapped a pic!