All About the Passion...
...Passion for the music we listen to in a huge gathering of thousands or by ourselves in our rooms in the dark (because let's face it, music always sounds better in the dark)...
Maybe it's my inherently cynical nature but, on a whole, I am not an easily impressible person. Sure, people make an impact every once in a while - positive and negative - but there are a very few number of people that I can honestly say have either changed (or, on a simpler level, just affected) me with enough force to have a lasting effect. This past weekend was the Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey. A near pilgrimage for the music obsessed, this Festival is a mecca for "scene kids" (as it were) - to the Meadowlands Arena parking lot to spend two days in the heat (or freezing) of early May to listen to bands ranging from straight up hardcore all the way down the musical evolution line and generation gap of new wave dance punk and back to the middle with pure pop-rock bands. It was during my own personal pilgrimage that I was able to finally meet one of the most influential musicians (in my own personal life) that I have ever had that privilege of hearing. It took just about eight years, but I finally met Andrew McMahon.
Now, before I confuse you, the irony of writing about the front man of bands like Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate for a website called ‘Icons of Punk’ is not lost on me. And believe me, I'll be the first to tell you, despite some people's attempts to label McMahon as almost a 'punk rock Billy Joel-type' - Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin are rock bands pure and simple. Piano rock (and as anyone who knows me, knows I’m a sucker for a piano). Why this does make sense, at least for me, is that Something Corporate was one of the first bands that by listening to it, I was exposed to many other types of "pop-punk-rock-emo-whatever it's called on Tuesday" bands. My logic is that, for me, "punk" is more then just a genre of music, it's the passion behind that music and all that surrounds it. It's the desire to make a difference or just to feel something real. This is as real as it gets for me.
Now, disclaimer over, as I said earlier no one really makes me nervous. No one really impresses me (minus a few notable exceptions; but, since I doubt fair reader that your name is Eric Clapton, we're good). No one really effects me; no one except this man and his music.
Saturday rolled around and I arrived at the "venue" with some friends. After taking a look at the schedule and double checking that there wasn't anyone I wanted to see until (much) later I said good-bye to my friends and watched them walk off to listen to Metro Station (for reasons still unknown to me). Honestly, I only went Saturday with the intention of seeing Jack's Mannequin perform live. I happened to stumble across a random tent that was selling CDs and T-Shirts at a reduced rate (if it was for charity it wasn't very clearly marked) and I noticed a very small whiteboard that said "Jack's Mannequin Signing - 3:00PM". I'm not ashamed to admit that my inner 12 year old danced a little (a lot) at that. At this point, it was only about 12:45 and I was meeting up with some other friends to go see Cute Is What We Aim For (with them) - after two songs I had had enough and left and located the Jack's Mannequin official merchandise booth. There I preordered the album "Glass Passenger" (#45) and took my limited edition "lithograph" (I say with quotes as it is in no way shape or form a lithograph - it's a heavy card stock poster) and walked back to the random booth where I proceeded to plant myself about 10 people back in the line that had already formed at 1:15pm.
The next two hours passed incredibly slowly. I had to deal with nearly psychotic teenagers who offered to pay for my spot in line so that they could get Jack to sign their poster. When I inquired who Jack was I was told it was the lead singer of the band. Needless to say, they didn't get my spot (and this is the third time something like this has happened to me since *JM came out - people still haven't been able to separate band name and singer name). Then there were the line-cutters - now I'm not all that nuts about this, as long as I actually get a signature I won't say anything...the people around me didn't share this viewpoint and I was pretty sure on a few occasions someone was going to get hit. I just stood and semi-patiently waited my turn. Finally, the screams started and out walks Andrew McMahon into the small tent where the signing was going to take place. I hadn't been able to physically see him yet but before I knew it my hands were completely numb and if you asked me to spell my first name I couldn't have told you (sidebar: last time that happened I was 16 and the person I reacted like this with still makes fun of me for it to this day).
As the line moved along I started thinking to myself all the things I could possibly say to this person who is only one year older then I am almost to the day and yet has racked up a lifetime more worth of experiences; things I couldn't even begin to understand. Suddenly, everything I thought I should say sounded trite and stupid. As I was waiting I heard the girl behind me (she was around 15) squeal over "how hot Andrew is" and (don't ask me why) that reminded me of what I thought the first time I heard his voice. I was in the beginning of my senior year of high school and my cousin mailed me a burned copy of a CD that a local (for her) band had put out entitled "Ready...Break". I didn't know what they looked like, how old they were or anything. All I knew was that I was absolutely in love with their music. I knew what I had to tell Andrew.
I've always heard stories from friends about how "they got so nervous when they met So-and-So" and as I approached the table my hands were shaking slightly and tingling (and later when I looked down I would notice they were also completely blue from lack of circulation) but I walked up to the table and took a deep breath and smiled. I simply stated "Hi Andrew" and got the regulatory "Thanks for coming out to see me" response and before they managed to shuffle me along I said very firmly, "Andrew I just needed to let you know that I've been waiting to meet you since I was 17...and I'm 24 now." The response I got was a sort of pause and laugh while he signed his name. I forced myself to be undeterred and continued on - I told him how my cousin had sent me a burned copy of "Ready...Break" in 2000 a little while after it came out and that I've loved his music since that point (I managed to leave out the part about how I cried when I heard Something Corporate played together at Bamboozle Left and I wasn’t there). My day was then made when he actually looked up from the table, took off his sunglasses and said with (what seemed like) complete honesty - "Wow. Old school. And thank you so much for sticking around this long through all the bullshit." With that I was finally herded along and past the table back into the crowd.
How can a simple (not even) two minute exchange between two people who will probably never see each other in person in such a setting again, nor will one of those people recognize the other, have such a profound effect on one single human being? I don't pretend to understand it. To be perfectly honest, I don't want to understand it. Because what it all comes down to in the end is passion.
Passion for the music we make - whether with an instrument or just by playing a CD for someone else. Passion for the music we listen to in a huge gathering of thousands or by ourselves in our rooms in the dark (because let's face it, music always sounds better in the dark). Passion for words sung and/or screamed at us. And yes, in some cases, passion for how aesthetically pleasing band members are. But, above all, it comes right down to how passionate it makes you feel about it.
