The delay in my response in the ultimate pious experience of my lifetime is due to my need to sort out all of the complex emotions that go along with it.
After the opportunity slipped through my fingers several times, turning me into an emotional wreck, the planets finally aligned and I was able to purchase tickets to see Bob Seger in concert; his last concert, the third concert of a three concert addition he added onto the end of his final tour just weeks before it ended. When my mom told me that he was returning to Detroit and that we could get tickets, I cried.
It's hard to put into words what Bob Seger means to me; he is the first musician I have memories of listening to. When my family went on roadtrips to Florida when I was little, Seger was always in the cassette or CD player. Hearing just one note of his music takes me back to the backseat of my mom's white Lumina, staring out the window at the green backdrop of Tennessee and Kentucky, the rocky cliffs that the highway runs through, or the underground highways in Atlanta. Bob Seger is, without a doubt, the strongest tradition that my family has.
At the concert, my eyes welled up during the first song; his music runs through me deeper than anything else. I was in awe. I sang, I screamed, I danced, I held up my lighter, and I was completed as a person.
Peace, love, and ponies.
"Against the wind,
We were running against the wind.
We were young and stong,
We were running against the wind"
- Bob Seger, "Against the Wind"
1 comment:
I have the same type of memories about Bob Seger, except that the car was a Ford Probe and the scenery was the flat 1970's suburbia of Utica, MI.
One of my favorite aspects of Saturday's show (besides Bob himself, duh) was the energy and passion the audience exuded. Some people go to concerts just to go, and none of those people were at Cobo on St. Patrick's Day. You could just tell that everyone there had either been in that exact same spot 30 years ago or had been hearing years and years of Seger lore. There was no "Well, my husband had tickets and I figured I'd go just for something to do." Bob Seger's music means something to every (albeit drunken) soul present, and it showed.
Just...a magnificent night. Definitely one for the books.
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