The Ledge - My Insider Experience

HI y'all. Sometimes I post here just because I don't have any Machead friends who will understand like y'all will. And if it's lame, feel free to delete it, moderators.

So years ago when Stevie was the "surprise special guest" (only we all knew about it, so it wasn't much of a surprise) at some of Tom Petty's shows, I went to see him/her/them. Insider is one of my very favorite songs ever and I actually think of it as a Stevie song even though it isn't. When I listen to it, I can only actually discern Stevie's voice, though I know Tom is singing too. I was hoping against hope that they would do Insider and lo and behold, they did. It's still one of the most memorable concert experiences for me, and I ended up going back to see him/her/them again when he added another Bay Area show, basically just to see that song performed again live. All that is to say how much I love that song.

A few weeks ago, I found out about a benefit concert that was going to happen in LA. I'm a huge Patty Griffin fan, on a par with Stevie for me. The benefit was going to be Patty, Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Brandi Carlile, all of whose music I love. I hemmed and hawed about taking 2 days off form work to fly down but I finally decided to do it.

After I bought the ticket and flight, they announced that they were also going to play in SF at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which is a free concert in Golden Gate Park. Patty also did a solo set. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have decided to go to LA, but as it turns out, I did. Their set at HSB wasn't a full set and I couldn't sit close for various reasons, but because I heard the set I figured Patty would probably do the same 2 songs plus one more song in LA. Which was correct.

So last night, as Patty was announcing her second song, she said that a guy whose name I didn't catch was going to help her do a Tom Petty song. I was excited because I love Tom's music. Then they guy comes out and strums the first chord and...You've got a dangerous background.

They did it exactly like Tom and Stevie, with Patty doing Stevie's part note for note. It was so unexpected and just so amazing that I really had a hard time processing it.

It was a wonderful night of music and for a great cause, and man, that's going to be a hard one to top. I just looked on youtube and found that she had done it before on a Cayamo cruise. I'm really glad I didn't know that before last night because it was so much better as a complete surprise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M4D27B6jiw

Kevin