Playing Grown-Up for the Evening

We just went to see a show at the Allen Room tonight. Oh my was it ever amazing. Chris Thile, formerly of Nickel Creek, and his new friend Michael Daves. Check them out here. This doesn't really do justice to the fact that Thile is a virtuoso on mandolin with a voice like an angel, entirely comfortable playing classical when the mood strikes (see the Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma), but in Daves he seems to have found someone who can keep up with him energetically. As an aside, I just discovered tonight that he was homeschooled.
What a stunning place to see a performance. It was misty and moody in New York today, so it actually looked just like that picture. True, we don't go out a whole lot these days, unless there is at least one kid along, so our grown-up evenings are rare, and to be honest we aren't all that discerning. We've spent many, many years having young kids at home and having to accommodate for them in one way or another. I wouldn't have it any other way, but still, it is refreshing to remember the things you loved before they were edged off center stage by the kids you love even more.
One of the things that Brett and I have always enjoyed doing together is seeing live music. Our tastes have evolved over the years, but I can still remember seeing George Michael when I was in high school and my little heart going pitter patter over the sheer excitement of the crowd, the volume, the utter coolness of it all. Then there was The Grateful Dead in college, and the whole summer/festival camping/road trip thing. We would pinch our pennies and venture out to The Gorge whenever possible, and those are some of the funnest weekends I've ever had. When Bono was walking toward me on a catwalk in about 1993 in British Columbia I nearly peed on myself, and seeing David Crosby in a small bar in Santa Fe shortly after being married is something we still talk about. We were perhaps starry eyed over the fact that we had finally gotten married the week before and I think we actually wrote a note to David (no doubt professing his sheer awesomeness) and asked a waiter to deliver it to him personally. Next came a bluegrass phase, sort of triggered by my parents. I guess we haven't really grown out of that one, and if we were anywhere near Seattle, we'd still be regulars at Wintergrass. If you live near there and haven't gone, you should go--it is a wonderful festival. We still sometimes enter the lottery for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, but so far we haven't been chosen. We had a brief hippie music renaissance just before leaving Portland where we somehow found it vitally important that our wee ones spend as much time as possible dancing barefoot in the dirt with hula hoops at any outdoor music event we could find within a days' drive. Maya particularly took to the little girls with names like Oceania and the craft booths (where she could be unsupervised with the glue and glitter), and Jonah, who was like a beached whale as a baby, really appreciated being precariously perched on our Mexican Blanket on a slight hill so he could actually roll himself over on occasion. You should have seen us being waved through the traffic lines at a Yonder Mountain String Band show--we thought it was our lucky day, but turns out it was just our license plate, something like YMSB 455--everyone thought we were with the band.
Since in New York, we've been to a weekend folk festival upstate that included one of my favorites, Dar Williams (who I later found out had lived in our building just before we moved into it), we've been to The Apollo Theater to see our kids' violin teacher, who won Amateur Night there last summer. We've been to Radio City Music Hall and The Beacon Theater and Madison Square Garden and free summer shows in Battery Park City and Central Park...
But tonight made me realize how much we haven't really been keeping up with the music world. We've stopped paying attention to who is collaborating with whom, and where the hot spots are. I had never even heard of this venue, but I'd see almost anything there--it wasn't very expensive, the accoustics were phenomenal and it was spacious and stunning. I bet there are loads of places like this in this over-achieving city.
Our apartment is generally bustling with kids and their friends and we opt for silence instead of background music most of the time when we're at home. I'm hereby making an exception to my No Resolutions in 2012 rule, and I'm going to say I'd like to bring music (made by grown-ups) a little closer to center stage in 2012.