Sunday, July 31, 2011

Entirely expected

Samson's solo acoustic set. Despite 1000 people in the tent, it was just as quiet as the following video, and luckily I was much closer to the stage than this:

When my friend asks "are you getting teary-eyed?", I just put my arm around her shoulders and smiled.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John K Samson sings the one about hating Winnipeg, the one about the kid with cake in his hair, the one written from the perspective of a cat. The audience is filled with people who know all the words, even to the old songs; who murmur them, softly, as if we are reminding ourselves. Very few of us have ever heard these tracks this way - on plain acoustic guitar, without the rest, without the Weakerthans. In these long moments, it is easy to imagine the lyrics alone, just poetry. We are an audience in late afternoon, murmuring John's stanzas.

"I'm so glad that you exist," John sings. These are old songs but we find we are etched in the same places that we used to be. And the others, the newcomers, who do not know John's songs: they murmur too, with new etchings.

(I sat next to him on the picnic table, tried not to stare as he ate his sandwich).