From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V16 #3399 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Wednesday, April 12 2023 Volume 16 : Number 3399 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- The concert for Vickie [Paul Blair ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 19:13:41 -0400 From: Paul Blair Subject: The concert for Vickie [I originally posted this to the Happy Rhodes fan group on Facebook. But it belongs here as well.] What an amazing, powerful, enchanted evening. Such a loving thing that we were seeing happen before our eyes, both in Happy's performing the concert and in people coming out for Vickie. It was so good to get back together with so many people I hadn't seen in many years, and to put faces to so many more names I'd only seen on email discussions. I mentioned to a few people that I don't listen to music the way I used to - -- I spend a lot less time listening to music, and when I do, I listen less intensely. Something happened when I started learning ballet and training for circus that diminished my deep need to merge spiritually with someone through their music. When Happy started singing "I'll Let You Go," I was transported back in time, to the person I was then and to the way I used to listen to music. She woke up something in me that I thought was forever in the past. The music -- I associate the ethereality of Happy's music with a lot of effects and electronic instruments. I never would have imagined such an "Ecto" vibe coming from a solo acoustic set. I loved almost every song she did as much as the original version, which is extremely rare for me to experience in a live performance. And she was just so dead on with everything. I hope AJ's concert video sees the light of day because that show should be immortalized. As far as going back in time is concerned, most of my old friends have white hair now. But Happy is and remains Happy; it felt as though she's exactly the same Happy she's always been, if not more so. It was as though we'd touched eternity somehow. A side story: In 2006 I made a train trip from Toronto to Vancouver. Another favorite band, Cowboy Junkies, was playing on the train every night. One car of the train was set up as the performance car. Somehow they managed to get the drum kit in there (I think Pete had to sit in the doorway of the bathroom to play) and the band was able to make magic despite the noise and shaking of the train. One night we were crossing the Great Plains. I was in the performance car, sitting by the window. We must have been going over a hundred miles an hour. It was pitch black outside, except for the red signal lights that kept shooting by at regular, rhythmic intervals. The Junkies were playing "Seven Years." Margo was singing, "Memories are just dead men making trouble." That moment has stayed with me all these years. It was: I am Here. This is Happening. There is nowhere else in the universe that even *exists* right now. That's what it was like for me to hear Happy sing again. ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V16 #3399 ****************************