[ForestImp]

This was such a rare, once-in-a-lifetime treat for me. How often is it that you have the opportunity to see a band as an adult that you were dancing to as a child? A 5-year-old me wearing my mother’s dress and scarves, spinning around the living room to “Rhiannon”... fast forward 16 years and I’m 10 ft. away from them, Lindsey’s sweat peppering my cheeks and Stevie looking right at me, my mother at my side. It was exhilaratingly new yet nostalgic at the same time, as if it had all come full-circle. I was born 11 years after Rumours... yet here I was, in 2009, 21 years old, dancing and crying, soaking in the intensity of it all, the band still creating such a majestic, mystical energy.
I almost didn’t buy the tickets last minute, afraid that after all these years they would sound tired or apathetic and taint my emotional connection to the music. It could not have been any more the opposite. It blew me away, the enthusiasm and raw emotion they conjured, as if they were singing these songs for the first time. After I had purchased my tickets, I told my mother and father, who had seen them before, that I was adamant in standing up and dancing, even if nobody else was, because I had seen videos of concerts where they were totally rocking out, yet the audience just sat there. I got my wish. My mother and I walked up the aisle toward the stage just as the lights went down and the crowd lit up. The attendant told me I could stand in front of the stage. My heart jumped and I stopped breathing for a moment. “You said I CAN?!” I was elated.
One of the many beautiful things about music is that even if you don’t fully understand the lyrics, you can connect emotionally with the melody and tone. Lyrics, no matter how intricate and transcendental, all boil down to basic human emotions. As a five-year-old boy, you can’t truly fathom the deeper meaning of “rulers make bad lovers... you better put your kingdom up for sale...” Yet somehow, I still ‘got it’. By the same token, one of the nice things about growing and growing up, is that suddenly all these light-bulbs begin sparking up, and you start connecting to the music even more-so, and on an intellectual level. Have yourself a painfully passionate relationship or two and then its “Ahh... so that’s what Stevie was talking about.” It’s comforting, and empowering; pushing you to move on, since it’s like, “Woah. She was singing about what I’m going through right now, and she wrote those lyrics before I was born.”
Seeing them perform in person after all these years has made me a little obsessed suddenly. Fleetwood Mac’s DVD and CD sales are about to spike, much to the chagrin of my wallet.
Thank you for introducing them to me Mom. I love you.