Masquerading Superheroes or Open Mic Night at the Back Page

 

February 9, 2016.  Lowell, MA

A February cold blankets the night.  It’s the kind of cold that penetrates your bones, your spirt.  It’s a cold blue sky with pops of diamonds and half-moon smiles.  Thirteen degrees outside and it’s a February like I used to remember it, as a kid, when the weather made sense.  I need to shake the blues, the cold, the mundane and the insane. I want to shake these American blues and venture out for my very first visit on a Wednesday night to experience Open Mic Night at Lowell’s Back Page.

I find a parking spot close to the pub, passing dirty snowbanks and a few lingering students and head down the canal alleyway clicking my black heel shoes over the red brick sidewalk to enter the club.  I pass the windows of a restaurant and see a few happy patrons enjoying each other, their food and drink and the warmth.  I am window spying into a moment, but it feels right, the spying, the flick of a moment captured in time and place. 

I go through the door and notice a slight odor of pot and a handful of males clustered around the bar and its female bartender.  Others are plugging in mic and amps, wires here and there.  At the stage there’s a set of drums to the rear right, a keyboard left front, two electric guitars and a stool in the middle with a mid-forties looking man playing a folk guitar.  He is playing lovely soothing, classical sounding notes, warming up and getting his guitar set up.

I ask the bartender what wine they have.  I have seventeen dollars in my pocket, with my license and that is it.  She shows me a wine list that my old eyes can’t read and I ask her what she has for Cabernet.  She reads off a list and then tells me the house label.  I can’t see the prices or the labels.  I say, “Francis.  Is that good?”  She says, “Yes, very good.”  I say, “OK.”  She goes to open a bottle and tells me, “That’s fourteen dollars. Do you want to start a tab?”  No tab, no money, the one drink will have to do.  I leave fifteen dollars and go find a seat and leave the bar area.

There are blue and clear string lights around the stage and in the windows.  There are two rows of tables with a wall separating the tables and the bar area and over the tables hang red-orange globe lamps.  The right row of tables sits along a partial wall of windows and the stage back wall is all brick.  The place is dimly lit, not sordidly, but warmly.  “Check. … Check, check….”  I am wrapped in a brick box in a blue city, bundled into the gentle sounds of strumming guitar.  I sit on the left row, a couple of seats away from a boy, a college kid.

It is Steve Clements Open Mic Night, and Steve is strumming.  He sings an Elvis Costello song, Alison.  He sounds like Jackson Browne.  I notice his shoes, his lovely brown shoes.  His shoes tell me something about him.  He’s got brown toe-scuffled shoes with a little buckle.  He wears those big framed black square glasses.  His shoes and glasses tell me he is a cool person, without trying.  He is the kind of guy that doesn’t judge harshly, that lives life fully, that savors life.

The bar is waking up. There are sounds of life, camaraderie, musician friends forever bound up in guitar strings and love, hard work, little rewards and creative juices.

I talk to the boy. 

“Are you playing?”

“Yes.  I am.  I was going to play at Club Passim in Cambridge but missed it.”

“That’s cool. I’ve never been here for Open Mic, but the bands that come here are great. Do you go to the college here?”

“Yes.”

“What are you taking up?”

“Botany.”

“Botany? That’s great.  Good for you.  I am Anne.”

“Nice to meet you, Anne.  I’m Eric.” 

 We shake hands.

“Nice to meet you, Eric.  You’ll do great up there. What are you singing?”

“An original song.”

“Good for you! That’s fabulous. I can’t wait to hear it.” 

We listen. He closes his eyes.  He has dark brown hair and the same black square glasses.  He tells me later that he is from an affluent local suburb and that he is only taking the one class right now.  He had gone to New York to go to the New School, where he studied politics but unspoken is that this did not work out.

I can tell and remember the feeling.  He doesn’t really know where he is in the world, how he fits in and what he wants to do with his life.  When he closes his eyes, he really listens to the music and we are both feeling it, now.  Music.  The dance of a song -- the rhythm, the lyrics, and the emotions.  I can see him, rocking it out in the slight movement of his head

Steve sings some originals.  One song is about a young woman celebrating her 29^th birthday and how she feels her life going by and not accomplishing what she’d hoped for.  Another has this great line in it – “You can’t pull the plug on love.”  He ends the set with another Elvis Costello tune, What’s So Funny ‘bout Peace, Love and Understanding.  It cheers me up.  It cheers all of us up.

And as I walked on

Through troubled times

My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes

So where are the strong?

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony. 

Steve introduces the keyboard player, Dave, and we are all digging it.  We are moving along the highway, so life won’t pass us by.  He introduces another regular, Ziggy.  Ziggy plays guitar.  He starts out acoustic and it seems that they all know Ziggy.  Ziggy has cool shoes; no cool glasses but wears a winter hat just so perfectly.  He is killing me because he picks a Gilbert O’Sullivan song, Alone Again.  This song has always made me cry.  A bunch of guys on the right side say, “Ziggy. What are you doing, Ziggy?  You are killing us with that song.  What are you trying to do, make us all cry?  I haven’t heard that song since Dale Dorman played it on WRKO.”

This is the part that always gets to me.

Looking back over the years

And whatever else that appears

I remember I cried when my father died

Never wishing to hide the tears

And at sixty-five years old

My mother, God rest her soul

Couldn't understand why the only man

She had ever loved had been taken

Leaving her to start

With a heart so badly broken

Despite encouragement from me

No words were ever spoken

And when she passed away

I cried and cried all day 

Alone again, naturally.

I am thinking of Joe and his mother and my mother and everyone’s mother. Lord, it is sad. And when she passed away, I cried and cried all day.  I’m trying to hide my tears, but they don’t hide easily.  “Kleenex at table twelve.” The guys have noticed me.  I guess I do stand out in a mostly male place.  I say, “Oh my God, that song kills me.” 

It is Eric’s turn.  Eric is all alone. No one is there to root for him; it is just me that even knows his name.  Steve says, “We have a new person who is playing an original. Let’s welcome Eric to the stage.”   I shout out, “Go, Eric! Woo!” 

This kid gets up there, all alone. He says this is an original song that he wrote about the 1917 Russian revolution.  The guys to the right say, “Oh, that revolution.  That’s one of my favorite periods in the post- modern era.  1917.”

He picks up his guitar and damn! This kid can play. He made up a song that is just genius.  It is about hope, fear, conquering demons.  Great guitar licks, this kid has guitar chops.  The guys on the right say, silently, “Shit. Who knew?”  We all applaud and cheer when he is done.  Eric jokes that it really isn’t about the Russian revolution of 1917, but we aren’t sure.  I think, hey, he learned something at the New School in New York.  It doesn’t matter, because it is a great song.  He leaves the stage and we high five. Smack! Man you really can play!  He is all smiles. He did it.

More people have come into the club.  It is a mixed crowd of young and middle-aged, hipster and downtrodden.  Then Steve notices a woman my age coming in and goes to greet her.  Warmly, he reaches her, hugging and kissing. “Grace! You playing tonight?”

Grace brought her daughter, about the same as Eric’s age. She seems to be good friends with Ziggy.  We learn that Ziggy teaches Grace and Steve goes out to his car where magically, he has a four-string bass and before you know it, we have Ziggy on electric, Steve on drums, Dave on keys and Grace on bass.  A purple, four stringed bass.  They play STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN.  And THEY ROCK!  Then they play, believe it, JIMI HENDRIX, Red House. 

I can’t believe my eyes or ears.

There is another round with keyboard Dave, Steve on drums.  They play Billy Joel. He is the piano man. He is Moving Out.  He plays New York State of Mind.  Eric and I are delighted. Eric heads to the door after the set and I shout out to him, “Come back another time!”  He says, “I will when I am twenty-one.”

The guys on the right and I laugh at that.  I say, “Oh to be that young again.”  

The pot odor comes on stronger now.  We all notice it and Steve says it smells pretty good.

It’s time for the guys on the right to jam.  Bill plays guitar and another Bill plays drums.  They form a “super group” with the piano man Dave playing not keys, but bass.  There are no words and Bill on guitar is the leader and the blues are coming out, clean and clear.  He plays his own jam and he is amazing!  I high five him, too.  He sits with me and we watch his friend, another different Dave who gets up there with the keyboard Dave still on bass and the drummer Bill playing drums.  Dave plays a white strat and plays Grand Funk Railroad, I’m Your Captain, then the Beatles,  Can’t Buy Me Love closing with a damn Chicago song, Beginnings.  This Dave on guitar is another magician.  I can’t believe the variety and the showmanship and the way this group, never having practiced these songs fit together like a puzzle.

I am just smiling.  I can’t believe why I never did this before. 

It’s getting late.  I’ve already had two calls from my husband.  I better get going.  It’s 11:11 pm and I know I need to go home.  I leave, pat guitar blues Bill on the back and tell him he is great.  

I think, as I linger at the doorway, listening to another masquerading hero, these people lead ordinary lives.  They do their day jobs, go through the same daily grind of the ordinary, the tedious and then Wednesday night comes and they put on their cool tees and scuffled shoes and pack up purple basses in freezing temperatures to become super heroes. 

They create.

I take my time even though it’s cold, down the brick sidewalk, into the frigid blue night, past the dirty old snowbanks. When I go home and slip into bed, I can’t sleep.  The magic lingers and I am so hopeful for all of us, for humankind.