road side revelation

i drove by southpark meadows on my way home. what i saw made me a little sick to my stomach. instead of the amazing outdoor music venue that was a part of my young adult memory, and the memories of a lot of people i went to college with, there were the makings of a strip mall. a freaking strip mall...like we need another one?

about 12 million years ago, i saw hordefest there. remember hordefest? it was kind of like lalapalooza, on with less well known bands. i saw blues traveler there, right after they released their first album, when john popper was still a fatty. hook was, and still is, one of my top twenty favorite songs, and i remember how i felt the first time i heard it. that song made me want to walk into a room full of my friends, with a beer in one hand, and a good conversation on my lips. sure, i know it's a song about peter pan and wendy. sure i know the chord progression is predictable, and based on pachelbel's canon in d. but it's a great song. and for one period, over six weeks, i played that song first thing in the morning. and that was about four years after the album came out. i drove my housemates crazy. that freaking song still ends up on my mix lists and on mix cd's about 7 times out of 10.

the day i saw blues traveler was a plain old august day, right before i turned 20. it was rainy, and gross, and i saw ben harper right before we went to the b.t. stage. we were sticky, and i was on the verge of begging to be taken home. and then john popper started playing his harmonica. the clouds parted, the pipes came out, and the sticky, sweet, cloying smell of youth and hash mingled and made music of their own. i stood in the crowd, and because i was terrified of being arrested, i didn't smoke the pot, but i was mesmerized by the music. enfolded in it, almost. and i was glad to be alive, in G-d's creation, listening to music that made my heart happy.

i saw dave matthews play at southpark, as well. my friend kerry and i tried to sneak in an icecream bucket full of margaritas, but the security people did their job, and confiscated our sweet treat. the show was amazing. satellite is one of the most sublime songs ever, in my eyes, at least. i remember being 16 and hearing dave on a cassette tape in my friend dustin's bedroom, after i'd given him a haircut, and thinking that it was one of the coolest things ever. i went to the wally, and bought my own cassette tape of dave, and wore the damn thing out. seriously, i warped the tape from listening to it over and over in the tape player in my old rabbit.

dave was great on the day i saw him. i still maintain it was one of the best live shows i've ever seen. he played all my favorites, and played two step, my second favorite dave song. and celebrate, we did. because life is short, but sweet for certain... ah dave, you are a quaker, and that makes you dear to my heart, not just because of all the tasty oatmeal, but because of the good theology and loving-kindness the friendly folk espouse.

and now, a place of song (and st. augustine says that "he who sings prays twice", so you do the math...) has become a place of commerce, which isn't to say that music isn't commerce. it's a strip mall, more of the same, marketing the sameness that we all seem to want, but say we don't. i know that change is the only thing that is constant. i get it. it just made me a little sad to see such a pretty piece of land, a natural amphitheater with incredible acoustics, and a place that had some memories of mine in it's recesses be turned into something utterly ordinary. blah.

i swear if they ever threaten to pave zilker park, or make more parking spaces by barton springs to put in a wal-mart, i will chain myself to the moontower like those armpit hair girls do with the trees in oregon.

end of rant...rachel OUT!

mil besos--rmg