Starting Again

Ryan Montbleau Band played [for me] on Tuesday. While a lot of live music is about the performance for me, with Ryan it's really about the music. His lyricism is poetry, it's pithy, it's clever. He is the epitome of everything I love about music. The emotion, the delivery, the pain, the lesson.. I fell in love with him all over again. He captivates my mind. He activates my soul.


First set started off somewhat shy. Christie, her cousin Keva and I were in our front-row table seating. I kept turning to Christie to convey my excitement. She understood! Christie had fallen in love with Ryan in the backseat of my car on our Cali road trip. I heard weeping and glanced at her in the rear-view. "I'm fine." she said. It all made sense. I was happy to know someone else was as moved by him as I.

Smiley drummer, James, and Christie were talking and dancing together with the music. Ryan was surprisingly solemn, but don't think I didn't notice his sideways smirk as he was noticing me.
As the crowd became more energetic so did the music. At some point there felt like a large shift from intimately personal performance to noisy drunk crowd.

There was the token drunk girl. Ryan and the boys handled it in the most adorable and respectable of ways. Say oooh! (oooh!)Say Heyoh! (Heyoh!) Say please get off the stage. (Please get off the stage). Thank you! (Thank you!)


He moved me to near-tears, and back again. The audience was kind of rude by the second set. Not really listening. Lots of talking. Drunk girl spilled beer all over me, and was totally oblivious. She didn't ruin my night any. I was even pegged as #1 fan by a cute hippie girl who danced near me, a title I accepted with pride.


The show was perfect: and then it was over.

No matter how I try to convince myself it's silly to fall in love with total strangers, it never seems to stick. We exchanged words at his last performance in October. Though, it was more my blushing and stammering and his genuine "Thank you." than anything else I thought certainly I'd have an opportunity to speak to him with composure for once! A bunch of people climbed aboard the big bus, and I felt a pang of jealousy. I am not that groupie girl. I am not that groupie girl. I am not that groupie girl! But oh how I longed to be in that moment.

Christie and I reluctantly climbed into my car, I shot one last longing look at the bus and drove away.