March 10, 2007--Seeing Travis Part II!
The Bedford, New Hampshire show on March 10, 2007…I arrived at the club at 8:30 pm or so, and it was packed. It was also smoke-filled as hell and I kicked myself for wearing my favorite tapestry jacket inside. As usual, there were a billion bands scheduled to go on before Travis, and I thought that I had arrived in the middle of them and at least missed a slug of them, but no…only one band had played before I got there. There was a band onstage when I arrived that was forgettable, I think it was Mindsext (whatever that means). The next band was called Jediah, complete with ringing guitars and a saxophonist, so that was sort of interesting and held me captive. The next band was one of those screaming-in-a-deep-voice bands--can’t remember the name, basically forgettable. The next band was Vegas Temper (or Temple, I could never figure out which) and they were actually really, really good.
After them, there was a long period of silence from the stage, the place was packed wall-to-wall, it was about 100 degrees in there, and I had about a four-inch personal space area all around me. I was in the third row, with a chick smoking clove cigarettes directly in front of me, whose long brown frizzy hair kept getting caught in my multi-tiered beaded bracelet (sorry, girlie!). To my left was an older woman, her husband, and directly in front of them was a tall guy in a leather jacket and a short girl, his girlfriend, in a tanktop. And directly in front of them was a guy in a wheelchair, who was there to celebrate his birthday by seeing Days of the New, and his friend, who was his chair-navigator. They were both in the front row, obviously. Who is going to take out a guy in a wheelchair to get to the front?
Phil seemed way more at ease and very sure of himself as he was setting stuff up. The silence became almost unbearable, the anticipation was incredibly huge. Then…without introduction or aplomb, Travis simply walked out on the stage (something I had seen him due at Locobazooka, a festival in Massachusetts, years before). The crowd went absolutely berserk. He started playing the alternate introduction to “Touch, Peel, and Stand” with the lyrics, “I’ll stab (your heart) with my tongue…I’ve got to eat and run…” and then said to us, “No time for din-din! Just a quickie!” I knew then he was in much better spirits and the sound, thank god, was working perfectly for him.
The show was absolutely mind-altering. If Travis had meandered through the songs the previous night, he went into a full-blown, blues-inspired, winding jam-out on every song, and it was simply perfection every time. The crowd was spellbound until the songs ended (when we could actually tell that they ended, they seemed to wind out over and over again), and then we hooted and hollered and begged for more. Again, Travis generally ignored all of us, eyes closed or cast toward the ceiling or out over our heads…and again, the crowd did not give a shit, did not care that he was in his world, as long as we were standing as damned close it as we could get to it.
The chemistry between the band members gelled that night. Malcolm remained mostly in his own world, but was inspired and light-fingered on the bass. Paul was rocking out in some Doors-like fashion, sweating and slippery through the percussion. Every song was a poem. It was the best show I have ever seen Travis do.
About ½ way through the show, the older woman and her husband who were standing next to me vacated. A drunk fuck wearing a backwards-facing baseball cap cut into their places and started hooting about something. Two songs later, the guy in the leather jacket and his girlfriend vacated the second row, and I stepped deftly into their places. Directly after that, the guy in the wheelchair decided he was too overwhelmed and too drunk and too hot to sit there anymore, and he and his friend vacated. And I stepped deftly again directly into the front row. There was Travis, larger than life, directly in front of me. Somehow, I will my way to the front of the stage every single time.
The last song was “Die Born.” Absolutely stunning and over too quickly, even though it went on for many minutes. I was swooning at the front of the stage when Travis announced he would stay after the show and do a meet-and-greet, like the night before. The lights came up, and I stood there as the crowd rolled over to where he would be sitting. I was literally stunned, dumbfounded by the magical quality of the show. Evan came up behind me, shaking his head and grinning. I said, “I managed to end up in the front row again.” He said, “I noticed!” He noticed from his third row vantage point, where he had been standing about six people away from me when I had been there too. We grinned at each other, still blissed out by the show. Phil was farting around on stage taking equipment down, and clearly recognized us from the night before. I coerced another guitar pick out of him, and then Evan and I went over and stood by the bar…to wait.
People came and went. Travis was in great spirits, joking around, gracious and communicative. A couple of sluts attempted to captivate him, but he was having none of that. It was all about the real fans, really talking and connecting with them. I watched him for a long time as I leaned against the bar, drinking a Coke. Evan kept wandering away from the bar, wandering back to the bar, wandering away from the bar. He was clearly trying to discern if it was worth his wait to stick around and potentially hang with Travis. I simply waited, already knowing the answer.
Paul wandered up beside me at one point, and I could not think of one thing to say to him. I looked at him, he looked at me, I made some gurgling sound, he smiled, I remained speechless. Duuuuh. He ordered a Bud, was given it, and then walked away. Again, duuuuuuuh.
So we waited and waited. I met the lead singer from Vegas Temper/Temple and told him how awesome his set was. He was a cool guy. Evan hung around, discerning that I was there for the long haul. We engaged good-naturedly in an inane conversation with a very drunk, long-haired hippie-looking guy who tried to convince me of his lack of need for an alarm clock. I watched an annoying, very young, half-dressed blonde bouncing around the table in front of Travis several times, laughing with her big white horse-teeth shining out of her pouty, red-rimmed lips. He engaged in conversation with her, but seemed impervious to her blatant solicitations. At one point, late in the evening, she pranced by me with a secret, sly, naughty grin on her mouth. I knew what she thought she was going to make happen, and I, in my utter witchy-bitchiness, had a big, fat, juicy, gnarly intention enter my own brain, only to be cast out into the net of the universe and somehow metaphysically caught: “I WILL BE THE LAST ONE STANDING TONIGHT, SWEETHEART. SOR-RY.”
Still people came and went. I saw the bouncers looking at their watches. Finally, I crossed the floor and stood next to the steel barriers, about six feet away from where Travis was sitting, where they were placed to keep people out of the “backstage area” which really wasn’t backstage at all, but side-stage and completely open. There was a huge body-building type guy directly to my right. Evan was sort of standing behind me. There were probably 12 people left in the place, and Travis spotted me standing there and said, “Hey! There’s no line in front of me!”
So Evan and I slid up there, and there I was, again face to face with the man himself. Jason recognized us from the night before and said hey. Travis said something about seeing us again and being glad we made it up. I said something about how mind-blowing the show was, and Travis said, “Yeah, we made just a little bit of magic out there tonight. I was conjuring something up!” His face was entirely open, he was smiling like a goofball, clearly pleased about the way the show had gone. I stood there for a minute basking in his aura, and then I remembered the candle I had in the car for him. So I leaned in close and said, “I have something for you in my car.” His face lit up and he said, “Awesome! Just hang out for a little bit, and we can go get it.”
Evan and I moved away from the table as the club employees started to take down more equipment. Two seconds later, the big bouncer guy was tapping his watch in my face and saying, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave. We’re closing. ” I looked back at the table and waved at Travis, and said to him, “They are kicking us out!”
And Travis opened his mouth to say something, and the bouncer guy said to him, “Are these two (meaning Evan and me) with you?”
And Travis said simply, “Yes. They’re with me.”
And that, dear friends, is how Evan and I came to be associated WITH THE BAND.
The bouncer guy said to me, “You guys can go behind the barrier, then. There’s some chairs back there--go on and sit down and take a load off.” Evan and I shagged our asses BEHIND the barriers, INTO the BACKSTAGE AREA, and sat down, me on a black chair and him on a stool, being WITH THE BAND, as we were and all. We sat there while Travis wandered around the club, shaking hands with club employees and jawing with people randomly. Jason, Phil, and Malcolm loaded this big box of equipment right in front of Evan and me. It was surreal sitting there, watching all the equipment and instruments, including Travis’ guitars, trotted around right in front of our noses. Paul wandered around like a Beat poet, looking all regal and cool.
I watched from BEHIND THE BARRIER, in the BACKSTAGE AREA, as part of THE BAND, as the irritating half-dressed, young blonde shrugged her coat on and sauntered up to Travis, telling him she was leaving. He wished her a goodnight, and boom, she was out the door.
Travis took a trip to the can, and then wandered back toward us, BEHIND THE BARRIER, into the BACKSTAGE AREA, where we were WITH THE BAND. Travis and I became engaged in a conversation about where his music is going. He said that he is learning how to step out of his own expectations for his songs, both old and new. He said that he is “reworking” and “reinventing” many things he has done in the past, “and trying to push my ego out of the way of it.” He became quite philosophical at one point, explaining to me his views about how his ego has gotten in the way of many things in his life, “and I can’t serve it anymore. I have to serve something higher than that. I have get out of the way and make space for it. I need to be less aware of myself, and yet be aware that I am the only one who can make that happen, which is somehow being more aware of myself.” He peered at me and said, “Does that make sense?”
I peered back at him and said, “Go further.”
He scratched his chin and thought for a minute. He began talking about how he had indulged himself for many years, “never admitting that methamphetamine is my most favorite thing in the world to do. I wouldn’t admit that to myself for a long time. Now, I have to admit it. It keeps me honest. Otherwise, I am self-indulgent and narcissistic.”
I said, “Saying it out loud makes it real. And making it real takes the mystery out of it.”
And he said, “YEAH!”
Then he said, “Like, if you tell me I am beautiful, I can just walk away and think, ‘Oh, I’m beautiful,’ and I don’t have to do anything about it. It’s a self-centered thing, that’s what (addiction) is.”
I said, “It’s better if you feel it in your own skin.”
And he just peered at me for a few seconds, nodding, and then went off on some train of thought that somehow caused him to pace back and forth in front of me and play air-guitar for a second while attempting to explain some deep thought process about his role as the vessel for the gifts he’s been given, as it originated in his brain. I just watched him indulging himself yet again, and suddenly he stopped and said, “I am becoming aware of how taxing I can be on people. I am becoming more aware that I need to stop talking and just shut up and not try to explain myself all the time. Let people get there on their own.” I smiled at him, and he smiled at me, and then he shut up about that.
I asked him when this process of “reworking” the songs had begun, and he said that it occurred “driving to Utah, getting clean.” I asked him, “Do you see it as ‘reinventing’ or ‘recreating’ them?” He said he was reinventing them, using what was there and expanding on it, putting the pieces together in a different pattern. He said that that was what the long jams were on stage--“but these things are all written down. The jams that we do--I’ve written them down. We’re working them all the time.” He said that “Provider,” “Dancing with the Wind,” and one other song (which escapes me at the moment, Evan knows) will be added to the band’s repertoire as they continue working together in whatever incarnation that might be.
As usual, Travis was quite inscrutable, and nothing he said made its way into the deep recesses of my brain until after I had had 24 hours to think about it. At the time, I “sponged” what he said and probably looked like an idiot as I struggled to figure out what the hell he was talking about AND remember it, while being giddily aware that I was still in the BACKSTAGE AREA, and having a conversation with TRAVIS as PART OF THE BAND.
Then the lights went off, and we were standing there in relative darkness. Jason and Malcolm shouldered the last pieces of equipment, and Travis grabbed the band’s pay for the night. We all walked out of the club together. Some chick in the parking lot had let her puppy out of the car (apparently it was in there during the entire show) and it ran directly to me. Travis was distracted by members of a previous, forgettable band standing in the parking lot, and he chatted with them for a few minutes. Evan began to hem and haw again about leaving or staying, and finally decided to leave. We hugged and he grinned, and begged me psychically not to tell anyone how ecstatic he had actually been to have been WITH THE BAND. We parted, and Travis wandered over to say goodbye to him and thank him for coming.
Travis remained a ball of lightening. He was pacing around putting things in the van, checking the equipment in the trailer for the last time, turning around to see the puppy about to jump on him and not being happy about that at all, saying, “You better not damn jump on me, dog--you better not be thinking that!” He was still yammering on to his bandmates, not unaware that I was still standing there waiting for him, but just not able to break himself away from the magic that the night had been. Finally I walked up to him, put my hands on my hips and said, “Travis Meeks, I need you for, like, two minutes.”
He said, “Oh! Right! The thing in your car! Where’s your car?” I pointed across the parking lot, and he thought I was pointing into a parking lot further away as we were actually walking toward my car and he said to me, “Well, could you drive over here?”
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at him incredulously. Me, DRIVE over, a single woman, ALONE, in the dark, in the rain, DRIVE over to HIM?!
I pointed and said, “My car is right THERE.”
And he waved his hands around and squawked something about being stupid, and I laughed at him, and he grinned. Then we were at the car. I opened the door, the light in the car came on, and I reached in quickly and retrieved the candle before he could really see what it was. Before I handed him the candle, which I have been giving him for years, I said to him, “I need to know if you truly like these things, or if I should just stop bringing them to you.” I stuck the candle under his nose then.
And he grabbed it and said, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You did bring it! Yeah, I like them--don’t you?!”
I said yes I did, but that I had never heard DIRECTLY from him that he liked the candles.
He stared at me, shocked. “I never told you that?!” I said, “Um…no.”
He said, “I have them lit all the time when I’m writing…creating…in whatever room I’m in. But…they can’t get wet.”
Well, then we were pile-assing across the parking lot again, on a run in the rain, with the candle under his now-tattered Betelguese-like jacket, beckoning me along to the van. Phil was in the driver’s seat, Paul was in the back, Malcolm was sitting in there with Paul, and Jason was just getting in the van when Travis shouted, “WHERE ARE ALL THOSE STICKERS?!” I’m standing there, and Travis’ butt is clambering in the front seat of the van, placing the candle very carefully and reverently in the console, with Phil going, “What was that?!”
Travis said, “MY candle.”
And Phil peered out at me and said, “Hey! You’re the one that brought that candle to Travis last August.”
I swear, these men have the memories of elephants.
And Travis shouted exuberantly, “This is JAHNEENE, man! She always brings me these candles!”
And Phil said, “I want one of those candles!” Then he said he was just kidding about me bringing one for him next time (but he wasn’t really kidding, his face said it all, his eyes begging at me over Travis’s bent head…), and Paul was sitting in the backseat grinning like a goober, and Travis was rummaging through a giant bag of stickers and taking out the same damned ones that I had PURCHASED the night before, and handing them to me, then realizing that I had purchased them, and began handing me other stickers. That, apparently, was his acknowledgement that he DID love the candles, and that he was thanking me in his strange sort of way.
As this was going on, I was standing there in the rain and grumbling to Jason, “If this rain keeps happening, I’m going to have a damned afro by the time this night is over.”
He cracked up, started laughing his ass off, and gave me hug, saying “It was great meeting you.” So that was kind of neat…and then my hands are overflowing with stickers, and Travis is peeling Jason off me…and hugging me himself.
And then he said to me: “Look, you are welcome to come hang out with us for awhile.”
I considered for three seconds, but then I leaned away from him for a second and said, “It’s 2:00 am, and I have a long drive back.”
He said, “You’re driving back to Maine tonight?!” I told him yeah, that I hadn’t rented a room this time. He continued the hug and said, “Well, I’m glad you came out tonight. Thank you. For everything.”
I leaned away from him and said, “Travis, I am so proud of you. I am so glad that…you are you.”
And he said, “I’m glad you are you, too!” And hugged me again. Because he is spoiled and indulged, still, and he knows it.
And I walked off into the night, in the rain, not giving a damn about my forming afro, got into my car, and drove home through literal blankets of fog, realizing that I had been, indeed, WITH THE BAND, and not only that, but I had been THE LAST ONE STANDING.
After them, there was a long period of silence from the stage, the place was packed wall-to-wall, it was about 100 degrees in there, and I had about a four-inch personal space area all around me. I was in the third row, with a chick smoking clove cigarettes directly in front of me, whose long brown frizzy hair kept getting caught in my multi-tiered beaded bracelet (sorry, girlie!). To my left was an older woman, her husband, and directly in front of them was a tall guy in a leather jacket and a short girl, his girlfriend, in a tanktop. And directly in front of them was a guy in a wheelchair, who was there to celebrate his birthday by seeing Days of the New, and his friend, who was his chair-navigator. They were both in the front row, obviously. Who is going to take out a guy in a wheelchair to get to the front?
Phil seemed way more at ease and very sure of himself as he was setting stuff up. The silence became almost unbearable, the anticipation was incredibly huge. Then…without introduction or aplomb, Travis simply walked out on the stage (something I had seen him due at Locobazooka, a festival in Massachusetts, years before). The crowd went absolutely berserk. He started playing the alternate introduction to “Touch, Peel, and Stand” with the lyrics, “I’ll stab (your heart) with my tongue…I’ve got to eat and run…” and then said to us, “No time for din-din! Just a quickie!” I knew then he was in much better spirits and the sound, thank god, was working perfectly for him.
The show was absolutely mind-altering. If Travis had meandered through the songs the previous night, he went into a full-blown, blues-inspired, winding jam-out on every song, and it was simply perfection every time. The crowd was spellbound until the songs ended (when we could actually tell that they ended, they seemed to wind out over and over again), and then we hooted and hollered and begged for more. Again, Travis generally ignored all of us, eyes closed or cast toward the ceiling or out over our heads…and again, the crowd did not give a shit, did not care that he was in his world, as long as we were standing as damned close it as we could get to it.
The chemistry between the band members gelled that night. Malcolm remained mostly in his own world, but was inspired and light-fingered on the bass. Paul was rocking out in some Doors-like fashion, sweating and slippery through the percussion. Every song was a poem. It was the best show I have ever seen Travis do.
About ½ way through the show, the older woman and her husband who were standing next to me vacated. A drunk fuck wearing a backwards-facing baseball cap cut into their places and started hooting about something. Two songs later, the guy in the leather jacket and his girlfriend vacated the second row, and I stepped deftly into their places. Directly after that, the guy in the wheelchair decided he was too overwhelmed and too drunk and too hot to sit there anymore, and he and his friend vacated. And I stepped deftly again directly into the front row. There was Travis, larger than life, directly in front of me. Somehow, I will my way to the front of the stage every single time.
The last song was “Die Born.” Absolutely stunning and over too quickly, even though it went on for many minutes. I was swooning at the front of the stage when Travis announced he would stay after the show and do a meet-and-greet, like the night before. The lights came up, and I stood there as the crowd rolled over to where he would be sitting. I was literally stunned, dumbfounded by the magical quality of the show. Evan came up behind me, shaking his head and grinning. I said, “I managed to end up in the front row again.” He said, “I noticed!” He noticed from his third row vantage point, where he had been standing about six people away from me when I had been there too. We grinned at each other, still blissed out by the show. Phil was farting around on stage taking equipment down, and clearly recognized us from the night before. I coerced another guitar pick out of him, and then Evan and I went over and stood by the bar…to wait.
People came and went. Travis was in great spirits, joking around, gracious and communicative. A couple of sluts attempted to captivate him, but he was having none of that. It was all about the real fans, really talking and connecting with them. I watched him for a long time as I leaned against the bar, drinking a Coke. Evan kept wandering away from the bar, wandering back to the bar, wandering away from the bar. He was clearly trying to discern if it was worth his wait to stick around and potentially hang with Travis. I simply waited, already knowing the answer.
Paul wandered up beside me at one point, and I could not think of one thing to say to him. I looked at him, he looked at me, I made some gurgling sound, he smiled, I remained speechless. Duuuuh. He ordered a Bud, was given it, and then walked away. Again, duuuuuuuh.
So we waited and waited. I met the lead singer from Vegas Temper/Temple and told him how awesome his set was. He was a cool guy. Evan hung around, discerning that I was there for the long haul. We engaged good-naturedly in an inane conversation with a very drunk, long-haired hippie-looking guy who tried to convince me of his lack of need for an alarm clock. I watched an annoying, very young, half-dressed blonde bouncing around the table in front of Travis several times, laughing with her big white horse-teeth shining out of her pouty, red-rimmed lips. He engaged in conversation with her, but seemed impervious to her blatant solicitations. At one point, late in the evening, she pranced by me with a secret, sly, naughty grin on her mouth. I knew what she thought she was going to make happen, and I, in my utter witchy-bitchiness, had a big, fat, juicy, gnarly intention enter my own brain, only to be cast out into the net of the universe and somehow metaphysically caught: “I WILL BE THE LAST ONE STANDING TONIGHT, SWEETHEART. SOR-RY.”
Still people came and went. I saw the bouncers looking at their watches. Finally, I crossed the floor and stood next to the steel barriers, about six feet away from where Travis was sitting, where they were placed to keep people out of the “backstage area” which really wasn’t backstage at all, but side-stage and completely open. There was a huge body-building type guy directly to my right. Evan was sort of standing behind me. There were probably 12 people left in the place, and Travis spotted me standing there and said, “Hey! There’s no line in front of me!”
So Evan and I slid up there, and there I was, again face to face with the man himself. Jason recognized us from the night before and said hey. Travis said something about seeing us again and being glad we made it up. I said something about how mind-blowing the show was, and Travis said, “Yeah, we made just a little bit of magic out there tonight. I was conjuring something up!” His face was entirely open, he was smiling like a goofball, clearly pleased about the way the show had gone. I stood there for a minute basking in his aura, and then I remembered the candle I had in the car for him. So I leaned in close and said, “I have something for you in my car.” His face lit up and he said, “Awesome! Just hang out for a little bit, and we can go get it.”
Evan and I moved away from the table as the club employees started to take down more equipment. Two seconds later, the big bouncer guy was tapping his watch in my face and saying, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave. We’re closing. ” I looked back at the table and waved at Travis, and said to him, “They are kicking us out!”
And Travis opened his mouth to say something, and the bouncer guy said to him, “Are these two (meaning Evan and me) with you?”
And Travis said simply, “Yes. They’re with me.”
And that, dear friends, is how Evan and I came to be associated WITH THE BAND.
The bouncer guy said to me, “You guys can go behind the barrier, then. There’s some chairs back there--go on and sit down and take a load off.” Evan and I shagged our asses BEHIND the barriers, INTO the BACKSTAGE AREA, and sat down, me on a black chair and him on a stool, being WITH THE BAND, as we were and all. We sat there while Travis wandered around the club, shaking hands with club employees and jawing with people randomly. Jason, Phil, and Malcolm loaded this big box of equipment right in front of Evan and me. It was surreal sitting there, watching all the equipment and instruments, including Travis’ guitars, trotted around right in front of our noses. Paul wandered around like a Beat poet, looking all regal and cool.
I watched from BEHIND THE BARRIER, in the BACKSTAGE AREA, as part of THE BAND, as the irritating half-dressed, young blonde shrugged her coat on and sauntered up to Travis, telling him she was leaving. He wished her a goodnight, and boom, she was out the door.
Travis took a trip to the can, and then wandered back toward us, BEHIND THE BARRIER, into the BACKSTAGE AREA, where we were WITH THE BAND. Travis and I became engaged in a conversation about where his music is going. He said that he is learning how to step out of his own expectations for his songs, both old and new. He said that he is “reworking” and “reinventing” many things he has done in the past, “and trying to push my ego out of the way of it.” He became quite philosophical at one point, explaining to me his views about how his ego has gotten in the way of many things in his life, “and I can’t serve it anymore. I have to serve something higher than that. I have get out of the way and make space for it. I need to be less aware of myself, and yet be aware that I am the only one who can make that happen, which is somehow being more aware of myself.” He peered at me and said, “Does that make sense?”
I peered back at him and said, “Go further.”
He scratched his chin and thought for a minute. He began talking about how he had indulged himself for many years, “never admitting that methamphetamine is my most favorite thing in the world to do. I wouldn’t admit that to myself for a long time. Now, I have to admit it. It keeps me honest. Otherwise, I am self-indulgent and narcissistic.”
I said, “Saying it out loud makes it real. And making it real takes the mystery out of it.”
And he said, “YEAH!”
Then he said, “Like, if you tell me I am beautiful, I can just walk away and think, ‘Oh, I’m beautiful,’ and I don’t have to do anything about it. It’s a self-centered thing, that’s what (addiction) is.”
I said, “It’s better if you feel it in your own skin.”
And he just peered at me for a few seconds, nodding, and then went off on some train of thought that somehow caused him to pace back and forth in front of me and play air-guitar for a second while attempting to explain some deep thought process about his role as the vessel for the gifts he’s been given, as it originated in his brain. I just watched him indulging himself yet again, and suddenly he stopped and said, “I am becoming aware of how taxing I can be on people. I am becoming more aware that I need to stop talking and just shut up and not try to explain myself all the time. Let people get there on their own.” I smiled at him, and he smiled at me, and then he shut up about that.
I asked him when this process of “reworking” the songs had begun, and he said that it occurred “driving to Utah, getting clean.” I asked him, “Do you see it as ‘reinventing’ or ‘recreating’ them?” He said he was reinventing them, using what was there and expanding on it, putting the pieces together in a different pattern. He said that that was what the long jams were on stage--“but these things are all written down. The jams that we do--I’ve written them down. We’re working them all the time.” He said that “Provider,” “Dancing with the Wind,” and one other song (which escapes me at the moment, Evan knows) will be added to the band’s repertoire as they continue working together in whatever incarnation that might be.
As usual, Travis was quite inscrutable, and nothing he said made its way into the deep recesses of my brain until after I had had 24 hours to think about it. At the time, I “sponged” what he said and probably looked like an idiot as I struggled to figure out what the hell he was talking about AND remember it, while being giddily aware that I was still in the BACKSTAGE AREA, and having a conversation with TRAVIS as PART OF THE BAND.
Then the lights went off, and we were standing there in relative darkness. Jason and Malcolm shouldered the last pieces of equipment, and Travis grabbed the band’s pay for the night. We all walked out of the club together. Some chick in the parking lot had let her puppy out of the car (apparently it was in there during the entire show) and it ran directly to me. Travis was distracted by members of a previous, forgettable band standing in the parking lot, and he chatted with them for a few minutes. Evan began to hem and haw again about leaving or staying, and finally decided to leave. We hugged and he grinned, and begged me psychically not to tell anyone how ecstatic he had actually been to have been WITH THE BAND. We parted, and Travis wandered over to say goodbye to him and thank him for coming.
Travis remained a ball of lightening. He was pacing around putting things in the van, checking the equipment in the trailer for the last time, turning around to see the puppy about to jump on him and not being happy about that at all, saying, “You better not damn jump on me, dog--you better not be thinking that!” He was still yammering on to his bandmates, not unaware that I was still standing there waiting for him, but just not able to break himself away from the magic that the night had been. Finally I walked up to him, put my hands on my hips and said, “Travis Meeks, I need you for, like, two minutes.”
He said, “Oh! Right! The thing in your car! Where’s your car?” I pointed across the parking lot, and he thought I was pointing into a parking lot further away as we were actually walking toward my car and he said to me, “Well, could you drive over here?”
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at him incredulously. Me, DRIVE over, a single woman, ALONE, in the dark, in the rain, DRIVE over to HIM?!
I pointed and said, “My car is right THERE.”
And he waved his hands around and squawked something about being stupid, and I laughed at him, and he grinned. Then we were at the car. I opened the door, the light in the car came on, and I reached in quickly and retrieved the candle before he could really see what it was. Before I handed him the candle, which I have been giving him for years, I said to him, “I need to know if you truly like these things, or if I should just stop bringing them to you.” I stuck the candle under his nose then.
And he grabbed it and said, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You did bring it! Yeah, I like them--don’t you?!”
I said yes I did, but that I had never heard DIRECTLY from him that he liked the candles.
He stared at me, shocked. “I never told you that?!” I said, “Um…no.”
He said, “I have them lit all the time when I’m writing…creating…in whatever room I’m in. But…they can’t get wet.”
Well, then we were pile-assing across the parking lot again, on a run in the rain, with the candle under his now-tattered Betelguese-like jacket, beckoning me along to the van. Phil was in the driver’s seat, Paul was in the back, Malcolm was sitting in there with Paul, and Jason was just getting in the van when Travis shouted, “WHERE ARE ALL THOSE STICKERS?!” I’m standing there, and Travis’ butt is clambering in the front seat of the van, placing the candle very carefully and reverently in the console, with Phil going, “What was that?!”
Travis said, “MY candle.”
And Phil peered out at me and said, “Hey! You’re the one that brought that candle to Travis last August.”
I swear, these men have the memories of elephants.
And Travis shouted exuberantly, “This is JAHNEENE, man! She always brings me these candles!”
And Phil said, “I want one of those candles!” Then he said he was just kidding about me bringing one for him next time (but he wasn’t really kidding, his face said it all, his eyes begging at me over Travis’s bent head…), and Paul was sitting in the backseat grinning like a goober, and Travis was rummaging through a giant bag of stickers and taking out the same damned ones that I had PURCHASED the night before, and handing them to me, then realizing that I had purchased them, and began handing me other stickers. That, apparently, was his acknowledgement that he DID love the candles, and that he was thanking me in his strange sort of way.
As this was going on, I was standing there in the rain and grumbling to Jason, “If this rain keeps happening, I’m going to have a damned afro by the time this night is over.”
He cracked up, started laughing his ass off, and gave me hug, saying “It was great meeting you.” So that was kind of neat…and then my hands are overflowing with stickers, and Travis is peeling Jason off me…and hugging me himself.
And then he said to me: “Look, you are welcome to come hang out with us for awhile.”
I considered for three seconds, but then I leaned away from him for a second and said, “It’s 2:00 am, and I have a long drive back.”
He said, “You’re driving back to Maine tonight?!” I told him yeah, that I hadn’t rented a room this time. He continued the hug and said, “Well, I’m glad you came out tonight. Thank you. For everything.”
I leaned away from him and said, “Travis, I am so proud of you. I am so glad that…you are you.”
And he said, “I’m glad you are you, too!” And hugged me again. Because he is spoiled and indulged, still, and he knows it.
And I walked off into the night, in the rain, not giving a damn about my forming afro, got into my car, and drove home through literal blankets of fog, realizing that I had been, indeed, WITH THE BAND, and not only that, but I had been THE LAST ONE STANDING.