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morrigirlOh my God, I have had the most wonderful night. I feel so happy and fresh and giddy and light and floating and special. Tonight, I went to The Living Room and saw Sophie B. Hawkins perform live for the very first time.
Now, before I go on, you have to understand what Sophie and her music mean to me. Everybody has that one music artist whose music touches them deeper than anyone else's. If you were to make a soundtrack of your life this is the person whose songs would dominate the album. For me, that artist is Sophie. I have loved her and her music ever since I first heard "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" back in the spring of 1992 at the age of 12. Over the years, and I know this sounds corny but it's the truth, her music has been such a comfort and inspiration to me. Her third album "Timbre" came out right after I got kicked out of Knox and was trying to emotionally assimilate the expulsion, as well as all the heartbreak of that proceeding year. The first two tracks on that album "Strange Thing, (since re-named Walking in My Blue Jeans) and "No Connection" were songs that really expressed what I was feeling at the time. I can't listen to either of them without being thrown back in time. They made me feel strong and capable, like all the bad experiences had been worth something, that they made me a better person. Sophie's second album, "Whaler," came out in 1994, just after I'd turned 15. It was around that time that Sophie started promoting her album directly to a queer audience and began giving interviews in which she openly admitted that she wasn't straight. I didn't realize it at the time but, at 15, having just figured out that I wasn't straight either, it was so important to know someone I loved and admired was queer too. so, in brief, that's how and why Sophie is so special to me. Much to my dismay, I have never seen her play live before. All the other times she has played New York, I've been unable to attend her shows. Until tonight :-)
I arrived a little after 7:00 just as they started letting the ticket holders in. The show wasn't gonna start till 8:00, but you know me, I always want to arrive early to get a good seat. The Living Room is a very small venue. There's a tiny stage in a room just big enough for roughly ten or eleven cafe tables with four chairs each and a bar. That's it. I was at the very end of the line so by the time I got in all the tables were taken. I found a stray row of chairs against one of the back walls and took and perched myself on the end. I had a great view of the stage and I was right on the aisle through which everyone passed to reach the stage so I felt golden. There was an opening act, but it wasn't until they quit that the place started really filling up. Droves of people descended on the place and I was really fucking grateful I'd gotten there when I did because all the later-comers were squished in the very back of the room practically on top of one another.
Finally, Sophie took the stage and...Oh. My. God. She was exquisite. She commanded that room like a preacher in the pulpit. She bounded up on stage and launched straight into "Mysteries We Understand." And the entire room was clapping and singing and grooving. Let's see, she played "California, Here I Come," "Before I Walk on Fire," "As I Lay Me Down," "We Are One Body," "Did We Not Choose Each Other," "Carry Me," "Sweetsexywoman," "I Need Nothing Else," "Lose Your Way," "No Connection," "Miles Away," "Bare the Weight of Me, " "Feelin' Good," "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover," and for the encore she did the one song I'd been hoping and praying she'd do, the one she said was her very favorite to perform, Bob Dylan's "I Want You."
She was so magnetic and energetic. She and the band played every song as if it was the last of the night. They threw themselves so far into it I was amazed Sophie wasn't passed out on the ground by the end of the fourth song! There was a lot of improvisation. Sophie would sing a whole song and then she would make up new verses on the spot, or the band would just jam for a bit. She improvised a bunch of verses about Gertrude Stein and her dead dachshund in Heaven. She did another about trying to catch the cab in Boston this morning to fly to NY for this evening's show. And they were all funny and fabulous! And, MAN, does that woman have a set of pipes on her! Back when she was first starting out and I saw her perform on Leno and Letterman, she was inconsistent. She would try to hit high notes and crack. She would sound uneven in general. But after 15 years of touring, DAMN, has she improved. Tonight she hit every note and sounded flawless while doing it. She jammed out on her drum, she played the keyboard with her forehead, and just knocked me right off my feet!
At one point she looked out into the audience and asked, "How many people were born in New York?" about 40% of the crowd cheered, myself included. The she asked "How many were born in Manhattan?" Me and maybe two or three other people cheered. "There are very few of us," she announced. That made me smile big. And the two times she left the stage, she walked right past me and touched the hand I extended to her *swoons*
But that's not even the best of it! After the show they were selling t-shirts and cd's, and of course, I bought her new double live album and a red T-shirt that says Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover across the front. And being the die hard fan I am, I waited around for her to come out and sign CD's like she had promised she would after the show. Sure enough, she came out and those of us who'd stayed formed a line for signings and picture taking. She was so pretty and so interested in talking to everyone. I was the sixth or seventh person in line, and when I got up to her I told her my name, and as she wrote on the CD jacket I thanked her for the fantastic show and told her I'd loved her and her music since I was 12. She looked at me and she said, "Oh my God, that's so deep," and then she hugged me!
SHE HUGGED ME!!!
I didn't even initiate it! SHE did! My favorite music artist in the entire known universe HUGGED me!!! I don't even know what cloud I was on after that. It was certainly higher than nine. She thanked me for coming, and I left. I have been giddy as a school girl ever since :-D
God, I can't tell you how special this night has been to me. Sophie is every bit as talented and funny and nice as I always imagined her to be. I feel so lucky.
And infectiously happy! :-D :-D :-D
Now, before I go on, you have to understand what Sophie and her music mean to me. Everybody has that one music artist whose music touches them deeper than anyone else's. If you were to make a soundtrack of your life this is the person whose songs would dominate the album. For me, that artist is Sophie. I have loved her and her music ever since I first heard "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" back in the spring of 1992 at the age of 12. Over the years, and I know this sounds corny but it's the truth, her music has been such a comfort and inspiration to me. Her third album "Timbre" came out right after I got kicked out of Knox and was trying to emotionally assimilate the expulsion, as well as all the heartbreak of that proceeding year. The first two tracks on that album "Strange Thing, (since re-named Walking in My Blue Jeans) and "No Connection" were songs that really expressed what I was feeling at the time. I can't listen to either of them without being thrown back in time. They made me feel strong and capable, like all the bad experiences had been worth something, that they made me a better person. Sophie's second album, "Whaler," came out in 1994, just after I'd turned 15. It was around that time that Sophie started promoting her album directly to a queer audience and began giving interviews in which she openly admitted that she wasn't straight. I didn't realize it at the time but, at 15, having just figured out that I wasn't straight either, it was so important to know someone I loved and admired was queer too. so, in brief, that's how and why Sophie is so special to me. Much to my dismay, I have never seen her play live before. All the other times she has played New York, I've been unable to attend her shows. Until tonight :-)
I arrived a little after 7:00 just as they started letting the ticket holders in. The show wasn't gonna start till 8:00, but you know me, I always want to arrive early to get a good seat. The Living Room is a very small venue. There's a tiny stage in a room just big enough for roughly ten or eleven cafe tables with four chairs each and a bar. That's it. I was at the very end of the line so by the time I got in all the tables were taken. I found a stray row of chairs against one of the back walls and took and perched myself on the end. I had a great view of the stage and I was right on the aisle through which everyone passed to reach the stage so I felt golden. There was an opening act, but it wasn't until they quit that the place started really filling up. Droves of people descended on the place and I was really fucking grateful I'd gotten there when I did because all the later-comers were squished in the very back of the room practically on top of one another.
Finally, Sophie took the stage and...Oh. My. God. She was exquisite. She commanded that room like a preacher in the pulpit. She bounded up on stage and launched straight into "Mysteries We Understand." And the entire room was clapping and singing and grooving. Let's see, she played "California, Here I Come," "Before I Walk on Fire," "As I Lay Me Down," "We Are One Body," "Did We Not Choose Each Other," "Carry Me," "Sweetsexywoman," "I Need Nothing Else," "Lose Your Way," "No Connection," "Miles Away," "Bare the Weight of Me, " "Feelin' Good," "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover," and for the encore she did the one song I'd been hoping and praying she'd do, the one she said was her very favorite to perform, Bob Dylan's "I Want You."
She was so magnetic and energetic. She and the band played every song as if it was the last of the night. They threw themselves so far into it I was amazed Sophie wasn't passed out on the ground by the end of the fourth song! There was a lot of improvisation. Sophie would sing a whole song and then she would make up new verses on the spot, or the band would just jam for a bit. She improvised a bunch of verses about Gertrude Stein and her dead dachshund in Heaven. She did another about trying to catch the cab in Boston this morning to fly to NY for this evening's show. And they were all funny and fabulous! And, MAN, does that woman have a set of pipes on her! Back when she was first starting out and I saw her perform on Leno and Letterman, she was inconsistent. She would try to hit high notes and crack. She would sound uneven in general. But after 15 years of touring, DAMN, has she improved. Tonight she hit every note and sounded flawless while doing it. She jammed out on her drum, she played the keyboard with her forehead, and just knocked me right off my feet!
At one point she looked out into the audience and asked, "How many people were born in New York?" about 40% of the crowd cheered, myself included. The she asked "How many were born in Manhattan?" Me and maybe two or three other people cheered. "There are very few of us," she announced. That made me smile big. And the two times she left the stage, she walked right past me and touched the hand I extended to her *swoons*
But that's not even the best of it! After the show they were selling t-shirts and cd's, and of course, I bought her new double live album and a red T-shirt that says Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover across the front. And being the die hard fan I am, I waited around for her to come out and sign CD's like she had promised she would after the show. Sure enough, she came out and those of us who'd stayed formed a line for signings and picture taking. She was so pretty and so interested in talking to everyone. I was the sixth or seventh person in line, and when I got up to her I told her my name, and as she wrote on the CD jacket I thanked her for the fantastic show and told her I'd loved her and her music since I was 12. She looked at me and she said, "Oh my God, that's so deep," and then she hugged me!
SHE HUGGED ME!!!
I didn't even initiate it! SHE did! My favorite music artist in the entire known universe HUGGED me!!! I don't even know what cloud I was on after that. It was certainly higher than nine. She thanked me for coming, and I left. I have been giddy as a school girl ever since :-D
God, I can't tell you how special this night has been to me. Sophie is every bit as talented and funny and nice as I always imagined her to be. I feel so lucky.
And infectiously happy! :-D :-D :-D
