On February 19-20, friends and collaborators of the late singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt gathered at the 40 Watt Club in his home base of Athens, Georgia to celebrate his life and music in a two-night event dubbed “The Vic Shows”. Steve and I love Vic’s music and wish that we could have attended the shows, but we also feel that we saw the first, unofficial musical tribute to Vic when Widespread Panic played Philips Arena on December 30-31, 2009.

Tribute shows are a different kind of live music experience, because they respond to a specific event and that creates a thematic focus. But sometimes even regular concerts feel like tribute shows because you can’t help seeing them through the lens of a recent event – the band is reacting to something, or you are, or both.

I’ve attended a few shows like this, and they are always more emotionally powerful than they would have been otherwise. I saw David Byrne at the Riviera Theatre in September 2001, so soon after 9/11 that he was driving between gigs because his flights were cancelled. He played “Life During Wartime” and the lyrics felt real in a way they never had before. I saw Panic at Oak Mountain in April 2002, when everyone knew that guitarist Mikey Houser had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and understood that these were some of his last shows with the band. They responded with an exceptional three-night run that included John Bell singing Neil Young’s “Don’t Be Denied” to Mikey (“pretty soon I met a friend who played guitar”) and a heart-wrenching cover of Jorma Kaukonen’s “Genesis” (“the time has come for us to pause/to think of living as it was/into the future we must cross”). When you see a show after something has happened in the band’s family or immediate community, good or bad, it’s almost always special. These kinds of performances are among the most memorable I’ve ever seen.

New Year’s Eve 2009: Two Bands, Two Tributes
Among the many shows and multi-night runs marking New Year’s Eve 2009, there were at least two bands whose performances responded to recent events in their communities: the aforementioned Panic shows in Atlanta, GA, and Railroad Earth at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, OR. While Panic was mourning the passing of their friend and musical collaborator, RRE was reflecting on the departure of bass player Johnny Grubb – and both of them delivered passionate performances that spoke to their particular situation. Steve and I went to Atlanta for the first time since New Year’s 2005, but followed the RRE shows from afar via Twitter setlist update and friends’ Facebook statuses.

A Death in the Family
Vic Chesnutt was a genius singer-songwriter whose dark, clever, and often unsettling lyrics endeared him to me immediately when I started listening to his music in college. Vic emerged from the Athens, GA music scene in the late 1980’s. REM’s Michael Stipe produced his first two albums, and he later collaborated with Widespread Panic on a side project called Brute. He became paraplegic after a car accident at age 18, and while he transcended his condition in many ways, every time I saw him play it seemed like a triumph over his physical limitations. His medical bills were astronomical, and he reportedly struggled with depression. On Christmas Day 2009, Vic passed away after an overdose of pills caused him to slip into a coma. Amidst my sadness for Vic and his family and friends, I couldn’t help wondering how Panic would acknowledge this great loss at the shows on December 30-31.

Mourning and Celebration
In the event, it felt like almost every song that Panic played during the two-night run reflected some aspect of how the band was reacting to and coping with Vic’s death. It was a tribute that encompassed both mourning and celebration. They opened the first night with Bob Dylan’s “Solid Rock,” which is about finding strength and consolation in a higher power when life gets hard. An early “Stop-Go” reminded us that while we were pausing to acknowledge Vic’s loss, we would have to move on at some point, because such is the human experience – death and life, ebb and flow, stop and go.

Panic covers quite a few of Vic’s songs, and we all wondered which ones they would choose to play on this occasion. The first Vic cover to come out was “Aunt Avis,” a song about the importance of families, with its haunting chorus, “Help me remember how to be good, how to continue when I feel I really shouldn’t.” I’ve always found this a poignant lyric, but it felt tragically appropriate in a whole new way – both in terms of how Vic might have been feeling before his death, and how the Panic family was feeling after his death. It occurred to me later that maybe the band didn’t feel like playing two big concerts after they heard about Vic – I’d like to think that the shows were cathartic for them as much as they were for us, but regardless, the band continued when they may have felt like they really shouldn’t.

The next tune, the Jerry Joseph cover “Climb to Safety,” seemed to speak directly to the struggling narrator of “Aunt Avis,” reminding him that his friends were there to help him through the hard times – “Let me be your ladder, I promise you’ll be dry and never be alone” – to me, it felt like Panic expressing what they wished they could have said to Vic in his darkest hour.

“Rebirtha” may have been the only song in the first set with no connection to Vic. With its bouncy bass line, the song felt more like a lightening of the mood, a reprieve from the heavy issues at hand – which Panic returned to and reflected on in another way with the set closer, “Weight of the World.”

Alternate Interpretations
The second set didn’t contain as many obvious references to Vic’s death, with a few notable exceptions, but I repeatedly found myself interpreting certain lyrics differently because I was still thinking about it. In my experience, the more you listen to a band, the more you develop certain ideas about what different songs mean – you find messages in the lyrics that you revisit whenever you hear them. But when you see a show after a tragic event – or any momentous event, really – certain lyrics jump out and remind you of that event, even as the old messages you’ve taken from the song linger in the back of your mind. The second set opener, “Ain’t Life Grand,” felt ironic with such recent evidence of how it’s not grand for everyone, but it also offered a different kind of perspective – we were still at a Panic show, having a great time, and we couldn’t deny that joy.

Ever since Mikey’s death, the songs he wrote and sang have an especially melancholy feeling, and certain lyrics can’t help but invoke his absence. Those songs and lyrics took on additional meanings during these shows. In “This Part of Town,” the lines “tell me brother can you see the sun/where you’re standing now” usually make me think of Mikey; that night, they made me think of Vic too. I wanted to believe that they were together somewhere, in heaven or wherever you think the spirits of the dead hang out – I think of it in terms of energy, so they could have been there with us.

Excitable Boy, They All Said
The big tribute to Vic that night came in the form of a surprise guest musician on a well-chosen cover tune: Mike Mills of REM joined Panic for Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy.” Given Vic’s place in the Athens music scene, it seemed fitting that another member of that community joined Panic to help commemorate their mutual friend. “Excitable Boy” describes a man who does crazier and crazier things while the people around him continue to respond with the same dismissive reaction – “excitable boy, they all said.” The upbeat music makes the unsettling lyrics all the more disturbing. It was easy to imagine that Vic might have been a similar kind of man – his twisted sensibility was certainly evident in his music – and perhaps his fellow musicians were acknowledging that they might have missed warning signs that foreshadowed his death because Vic had always been kind of a weird, depressive guy, so it was hard to know when to worry about him.

The Vic tribute picked up again on New Year’s Eve. The lights made the stage look like a church during the acoustic first set, which opened with JB solo singing a slow, sad “Let’s Get Down To Business,” another Vic cover. The song’s repeated questions to a troubled friend were painfully appropriate: “Why didn’t you tell me things had gotten this bad?” “Why didn’t you tell me things had gotten so hard?” And the lesson of the song rang truer than ever – “tackle this what shackles us/all of this pressing business.”

Until My Expiration Day
While many songs in the first set seemed to allude to Vic, if only in their titles – e.g. “Already Fried,” “Tortured Artist,” “Cynic,” and “Crazy,” none of which seem particularly complimentary – the emotional centerpiece of the set was the “Vacation”-“Expiration Day” combo. As much as the Vacation chorus is a grab-your-significant-other-or-buddy feel-good moment – “I didn’t see you were right next to me but I’m so glad you could make it/With you by my side I might get back alive from my next vacation” – the verses are scary, with the narrator braving death at every turn. Given that it was a Mikey song, the association with death has been even stronger since his passing, and naturally it evoked Vic’s more recent death when it was played on New Year’s Eve. The chorus is what sticks with you though, and the powerful jam reminded us of the way that music can help us get through painful situations.

“Expiration Day,” another Vic cover that Panic had played with him as Brute, and also without him, made the death theme explicit. We had speculated beforehand about whether they would play this song – it was the obvious choice, or maybe the perfect choice, but I wondered if they might avoid it because JB would be too choked up to sing, so I was both surprised and not surprised when I heard the signature piano intro. (I noticed that Panic didn’t play any of the Vic songs that bass player Dave Schools sings – maybe he was too choked up. I haven’t been able to listen to Vic’s music since his death, so I wouldn’t blame him.) The song was especially moving because many of us had heard Vic sing it on this stage with Panic on New Year’s Eve 2001, and the repeated chorus of “Until my expiration day” packed a devastating emotional punch. Luckily, Panic hadn’t completely forgotten how to structure a set (the first night’s show had me wondering!) so they brought the good vibes back with “Holden Oversoul” and a “Porch Song” closer – which again touched on the power of music to get us through our lives: “the man in the moon is a musican and that’s the way we pass the lunar day.”

Time to Move My Life Again
If the second and third sets had a theme, they were mostly about letting go, moving forward, and celebrating life, especially when we moved into the new year after midnight. The “Space Wrangler” in the second set reminded us that babies were still being born even as death loomed large, and that we were here to celebrate with our friends so near. The “Surprise Valley>Driving Song>Disco>Driving” sandwich was all about moving on, especially in the lyrics “Goodbye it’s time to fly” and “It’s time to move my life again,” and in the urgent rhythms of Disco. “Rock” told us that we “can’t go back” even when it feels impossible to move forward. And yet, the cover of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” that followed admitted that we couldn’t help wishing that “those days could come back once more” – perhaps describing our natural tendency to look back even as we move forward. The set ended with a thunderous “Chilly Water,” which nearly obliterated all thought as we moved to the music, but also reinforced the theme of moving forward as the narrator “ride(s) on to another city tonight.”

At the end of a long, cathartic night of music, Panic sent us home with one more tribute to Vic, covering his “Protein Drink>Sewing Machine,” which they had played together as Brute. This rocking, raging one-two punch reiterated that we could still revel in Vic’s dark sensibility and imaginative songwriting – that even though his physical body has left this world, his music will always live on.

*****

Readers: Share your thoughts about tribute concerts in the comments! Did you see the Panic or RRE NYE shows and notice the kinds of things I discussed here, or have you seen another show that was similarly affected by recent events?

Image by Haags Uitburo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

And yet, it was during my college years at the University of Chicago that music became a bigger part of my life than ever. I turned into what I like to call a “professional music fan”, devoting most of my spare time (and income far beyond disposable) to music: listening to it, discussing it, reading about it, and going to see it live. All of my friends were into music, and my boyfriend was in a band. We saw lots of concerts in Chicago, from big rock shows to little jazz shows and everything in between, and we started traveling to see Phish and Widespread Panic. My collection of ticket stubs became one of my most prized possessions. And I never looked back – I’m a professional music fan for life.

These days I’m also a professional writer, and I love to write about the ways that music overlaps with and sometimes influences the human experience. Steve and I are calling this blog Better Living Through Music because that has been the case for us – music has given us an escape, a point of connection with many people, and a way to understand life better – and I’m sure many music fans have similar stories. Feel free to share them in the comments!

One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain

For me, music was an escape before it was anything else. I grew up in a beautiful rural area of central Wisconsin where I often felt isolated and different from other kids. Listening to Casey Kasem and later Dr. Demento on my pink boombox radio every week, I began to feel a connection with a larger world. When I started to focus my energies on mastering the tenor saxophone, it helped to distract me from a difficult high school experience. Nirvana and my other high school favorites – Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day, R.E.M. and the Indigo Girls – soothed my teenage aggravation and alienation and translated them into something more interesting.

Ever since then, music has been an escape and a solace. I have playlists on my iPod to vent my frustration or distract from my anxieties, and there are certain songs that I can always count on to lift my spirits. Most of my vacations revolve around live music, and I think of concerts as mini-vacations even when they don’t come with time off work, because seeing live music is generally a healing, uplifting experience. In short, music makes life better by offering us relief from our daily struggles.

Come gather round people, wherever you roam

But even as music was an escape for me, it also became a way to connect with people. Most of my high school friends were band geeks, and we bonded over the music we listened to. I saw my first concert with a group of friends in high school – Pink Floyd on the Division Bell tour. I made a friend at a summer camp who taught me about the Dead Kennedys and punk music, and he introduced me to another friend who sent me a mixed tape that included Tom Waits and Hank Williams Jr. I have added new musicians to my collection with almost every friend I’ve made, and the story of my relationship with my husband is inseparable from the music of our favorite bands.

In college, I began to understand the concept of a music family as I repeatedly traveled with a group of friends to see Phish. When I started listening to Widespread Panic, I embraced online music communities, and my best friends after I graduated from college were a group of heavy-drinking, warm-hearted Panic fans I met online, most of whom lived in Chicago. Going to shows with them, I was introduced to an even larger Panic family living in the Southeast, Midwest, and across the country. I got to know several women who became my closest girlfriends, and I met my future husband when I joined a group of Chicago Panic fans for a Los Lobos show at Ravinia Park in 2001. Through his friendship with a couple of musicians in Railroad Earth, we became part of another close-knit family of professional music fans that spans the country.

Not only has music introduced me to many of my best friends, including my husband, but it is a point of connection with almost everyone I meet, from coworkers to cab drivers. I am a shy person, but I can talk to anyone if I find out that we have a band in common. Music brings people together, and that is a powerful thing.

When you get confused, listen to the music play

The older I get, the more music has also become a way to make sense of my experiences. I often think I recognize myself in the characters in song lyrics, and sometimes that recognition helps to shift my perspective on a situation. I use lyrics to communicate what I’m thinking and feeling – one of my favorite internal games is “what lyric expresses me right now?” I have theme songs and mixes for different times in my life, and for different people in my life. Every couple has their song, and most music fan couples have exchanged mixed tapes or CDs, but Steve and I also designed our wedding invitations and décor around song lyrics, picked out every song in our reception mix, and traveled to Jazz Fest in New Orleans for our honeymoon.

I’ve come to realize that music is a way to refresh my soul, renew my best intentions, and remember what’s really important. My favorite songs are the ones that speak to my personal challenges and remind me that I already have the keys to overcome them. There is wisdom in lyrics that offers guidance for how to live, and some of those lyrics have become my personal mantras. In addition to providing an escape and a way to connect with people, music makes life better by offering another way to understand it.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading my first post. They won’t all be this long, although I do like to ramble occasionally. I’ll be writing about all things music – concerts and albums, but also the random life experiences that remind me why I love music. I’ll be posting at least every other week, probably more. Feel free to share your thoughts about how music makes your life better!