I remember obsessing over live music. My friends and I would go to outdoor concerts and festivals, clubs and music halls, following bands, camping out, getting sunburned. I remember how it smelled, like trampled on grass and smoke and sweat. Like blankets and fried food, and something sweet I can’t identify, but that might just have been fresh air. When a favorite song was played, we jumped up and down, singing along and hanging on to each other, utterly gleeful. Once a friend of a friend came to a show, and, watching us as if we were anthropological mysteries, said, “I don’t think I like music as much as you guys do.”

Seeing live music is still one of my favorite things to do, and, even though it’s quite a different experience these days, Rob and I spent our weekend going to shows. On Friday night, we met a group of our friends at Sheba’s Ethiopian Piano Bar, where they had secured a cozy corner spot and ordered a few bottles of wine and some sweet potato fries, which doesn’t seem very Ethiopian, now that I think about it.

These are friends I don’t get to see very often, and they erupted in screams when we rolled through the door. I have no doubt they had erupted in screams each time one of them arrived prior to that, too. There were ten of us: One had flown in from the actual state of New Jersey, 4 others are NJ transplants, and the rest of us don’t matter because our roots are buried beneath all that Jerseyness. I say this with love. Read More>