Sensitive Souls

My ears are still ringing. And I can still feel the pounding of the drums in my chest. When I close my eyes, I see long fingers pounding the heck out of a beautiful guitar. I didn’t expect to love it, really, this heart-rending display of rock and roll. But I did. Alejandro Escovedo rocked the Beachland Ballroom last night in Cleveland, a feat he’s been pulling off with audiences across the country for as long as I’ve been alive. I’m not sure how he does it night after night in city after city, climbing into a giant white van after bleeding his soul into the crowd. But it sure is fun to watch the magic unfurl on the stage.

He doesn’t look much like the aging rocker I had pictured. He doesn’t even quite look like the Mexican that he is, somehow bearing a more Asian countenance. But none of that matters when he and the Sensitive Men hit the stage. I just love to watch the chemistry, imagine the jokes these guys tell each other on the long empty miles of highway, see the smiles and chords shared in front of the crowd.

They play with all their heart. Sounds trite really, but you can see the passion and feel the earth-shaking dreams in the beat of the drums and the fierce strumming of the guitars. The bass player is the one that spooks me. He looks like a true rock-n-roller, with a giant wingspan and the longest guitar I’ve ever seen. He plays stoically almost, pulsing the background beat for the show without fanfare and with only the occasional hint of a smile.

He is standing, as it turns out, in the exact spot on the stage where just six months ago another amazing musician stood. Amy Farris, an extraordinary violinist and angelic singer, played the Beachland in July with Dave Alvin and his Guilty Women. Three months after she moved me with an amazing show, she was dead.

I can’t get the picture out of my head. The pale dark haired rocker morphs into the red headed violin dynamo before my eyes. And I realize again just how much these traveling musicians have to give up to follow their fantasies. Apparently, earth-shaking dreams are not enough, even to keep you alive. It swirls in my head tonight: the way these musicians give their all to audiences large and small throughout the country. How they do the only thing they know how to do, without apology and without settling for something less. And how the road is so lonely and the night so dark sometimes. The roar of the crowd is something, but I marvel that it could keep you going night after night in city after city.

There is something very special here, though. In the pounding rock and roll. In the banter with the audience. In the living of the dream. Something special enough to get Alejandro to the next night and the next city and the next dream.