"So as I see it today is the last of my big anniversaries. It was one year ago today that I stepped back on to stage. I was a bald headed bag of bones, weak as could be but finally back where I belonged: under a rig of hot lights with a piano, a band and some songs to sing. My relationship with performing has always been a strange one. As a boy I wrote music because it brought me peace. I played for 8 hours a day, constantly imagining a night where I might look out upon a thousand silhouettes, not seeing a single face, but knowing they were mine to sing for. I kept playing. As I got older I found stages, not the ones I had imagined but still, places I could go where just putting my hands on the keys was enough to make me numb from the fingertips up. I craved the sound of an untamed room: a church, a talent show, a dive bar. I sought stages like a junky did a fix, and today, for me, the 2nd of December, encapsulates one of my truest loves. The concert.
Over the years I have had those nights I dreamt of, staring into the blackness knowing that it was staring back at me. Those thousands of silhouettes I had always hoped would show up often do now. Some nights I look out at them, at you, half-lit and singing and it's like I'm fulfilling some destiny, other times I'm as lost as anyone whishing I could just make these sounds in the dark. Some would say that a life on the road is not the normal human experience, but what is? Since I can remember I have been a troubadour. I grew up moving from city to city, starting a new life every few years. And in a lot of ways nothing has changed
At night when the show is through and most people are asleep we travel the highways, usually I sleep too, but some nights I sit shotgun, rarely having the slightest idea where I am. You'd think by now I'd know the lay of this great land but I prefer the not knowing. It's like I'm constantly stealing away, leaving the past in some unknown city, leaning forward, hope stretching out on the dark horizon. Yes, you can get lost out here and sometimes I do. In all honesty, this life I’ve chosen has stranded me more times than I care to admit, but it’s that push and pull; the moment where all is forgotten and a stage is pure music…that’s why we do this. That’s why my home is people not places and why I lean on the horizon like a dying man with one last thing to see.
I am lucky. I did not choose this life it chose me. It’s strange like that. Not picking my path, but rather easing into the water and letting it carry me where it will. Yes, there will be nights where I feel like my destiny is at my fingertips and there will be nights I wish the lights were off and I could just make these sounds in the dark. Still, I will always be there, wherever there might be, staring into the blackness hoping the blackness stares back at me." -Andrew McMahon [Jack's Mannequin/Something Corporate] December 2, 2006.
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