Chance of a Lifetime

If you’ve followed this blog for any period of time, you know how important music is to me. And if you don’t... well, go back to the older posts and get yourself caught up! What else were you really going to do with your summer? But if you have, you should know that it’s no small thing when I say this past weekend I saw one of my favorite artists perform live in concert: Neal Morse. In all seriousness, the only concert I can think of that would be a bigger deal for me than this would be to see Queen re-unite with Freddie Mercury. Which is not going to happen.

Yeah, I know you’ve never heard of him. That’s okay. Few have. You’re not going to know him from the radio because even though he’s been recording for close to 20 years, he plays in the genre of progressive rock. If you aren’t familiar with that, I’ll give you a pretty good definition of what it is from the man himself: “Music that incorporates many different styles and breaks out of normal song structure... the writing style has more in common with classical music than pop, using recurring musical themes and complex melodies and counter melodies. The pieces are also typically longer than the usual three- to four-minute pop fare, much like a classical composition would be.” I would also add that lyrically the themes are more complex, often becoming conceptual pieces with story threads that often link together all works on an entire album.

Being a progressive rock fan can put you on the same level of nerd as being a Star Trek fan for some people, and not just a casual Star Trek fan but the kind who would attend conventions wearing a Klingon costume after studying Klingon language CDs for the authenticity. Progressive rock doesn’t have casual fans. The people who love it love it passionately, which isn’t always a cool thing to admit about anything when you’re a fan. For me, it’s about songwriting, composition, and musical virtuosity. As a music fan, I tend to see these things as positives.

I first heard of Neal when he was still in his old band, Spock’s Beard, which I’d discovered through a connection from another favorite band, Dream Theater. Spock’s became a quick favorite, and as is the case with many bands, one guy was the driving creative force behind it all: Neal. Later, while still in Spock’s, Neal formed a side band with Mike Portnoy, the drummer from Dream Theater. This new band, Transatlantic, also had Neal’s fingerprints all over it. After a decade, he left both bands, feeling a call from his Christian beliefs to go a different direction with his career and his life. As a fan, this was scary at first, because a lot of contemporary Christian music is generally awful -- and I say this as a lifelong Catholic. But Neal kept making the same kind of complex and involved music he’d always made, only with Christian themes. Sometimes those themes were overt and sometimes very understated, but always with the same sensibility. And frankly, that sensibility was subtly present in of much of his earlier band work already. Once I saw his musical voice was still intact, I was relived.

As passionate as Neal’s fan base is, he still isn’t very well-known so he doesn’t tour very much. When it was announced he was doing a tour in North America to promote a new album, and was going to play in Seattle, where my friend Dax lives, making the arrangements to see him wasn’t a hard decision to make. Dax and I had more or less discovered Neal’s music in parallel, and for us to see one of our favorites together? It was a once in a lifetime chance.

An added bonus was that Mike Portnoy was touring with him as the drummer, which was a perfect fit since Mike almost exclusively does the drumming on Neal’s recorded work. Now, Mike is arguably the best drummer in the world. I know it’s easy to throw around hyperbole when people talk about their favorite music and musicians, especially when you’re a huge fan. Trust me though, this is not misplaced -- he just might be the best drummer on the face of the Earth. My nephew made a telling point about Mike after seeing him perform live in Dream Theater: “He’s just back there behind the drum kit goofing around the whole time while he’s playing stuff that is friggin’ impossible to play.” Curious? You want proof? YouTube. Just saying. It’s out there.

I flew out to Seattle a day early to stay with Dax and his wife Melissa, then met up with Dax’s father the next day since he was going to the concert with us. The show was in a theater in Seattle’s Experience Music Project -- if you aren’t familiar with this, it’s a museum of popular music, much of which is interactive. It’s a great idea and on the verge of being a really cool place that doesn’t quite reach its potential. Traveling there to see the exhibits would have been a disappointment, but we were there for the show.

The venue was about the size of a mid-sized club, with a capacity of just under one thousand. The seating was general admission, but there was no mad rush when the doors opened. The merchandise line (yeah, you bet I bought a shirt) was polite and genial, just total strangers waiting and talking so much about this music they love and appreciating that there were other people they could talk with about it. People would ask each if seats were taken instead of jostling their way to be as close to the stage as possible. The show was all about the music with none of the traditional “party” elements -- primarily there were no dancing, screaming drunks out to party for a night while the kids stuck at home with the babysitter. In fact, one of the key members of the band went into the crowd to visit with some guests of his before the show started, and even though everyone in the room knew who he was, he wandered through the audience completely unaccosted, with few people offering only respectful hellos and wishes for a good show.

The experience of hearing one of my favorite artists playing songs that have such deep, personal meaning me, isn’t something I’d even want to try and describe for fear of missing the mark. It was powerful and intimate and inspiring at the same time. A line I’ve used occasionally with people, such as in the days before my sister’s death, was that I was able to pull through some pretty dark times because “I’ve got Neal’s music to heal up the existential wounds.” Which really describes what this music means to me, so make the leap of what it would mean to hear that music performed by the guy who created it and you’re probably most of the way there.

Our seats were just beside the sound board, right behind the VIP section set up in front of the stage, in what would have been the equivalent of the fifth row, the best seats I’ve had for any show I’ve seen. At one point between songs, Mike Portnoy even stood up behind the kit to shout out an added point about something Neal was saying, and we could all hear him loud and clear even without a microphone. Neal sang and played ten yards away from where I stood, about the distance from one side of my classroom to the other. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, so even though he played keyboards for most of the show, he would frequently strap on a guitar and play that as well, even taking on some lengthy and complicated solos with just as much skill as he demonstrated on his keyboard.

Are you intrigued by any of this? Go on iTunes, preview and buy something, and give the man a chance. If you do, I’d recommend Spock’s Beard’s album “V,” Transatlantic’s “Bridge Across Forever,” or Neal’s own “Lifeline,” even if that album has the one song from the show I could have done without. Though if I’m being candid I’d really recommend Neal’s “Testimony” and Spock’s Beard’s “Snow.” Those are two of my three all-time favorite albums, but since they’re double albums they cost more.

A few months back I wrote a post here about why concerts suck, and everything I said there still holds true. But this show? This was an exception in every imaginable way. I spent $700 in airline tickets and spent a total of ten hours round-trip on four different flights (two of which I came uncomfortably close to missing) to see a show that was nearly four hours long in a small theater with about 900 other people.

It was totally worth it.