Play that funky music
The people and colors of Firefly Music Festival 2014 / Photo by Deborah Lynch
Freshly home from the 2016 Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware, requires reflection about the role that music plays in my life. Despite growing up in the same tiny town and knowing one another casually, if not for a 38 Special concert during my junior year of college (not the same college he went to), my husband and I would not be a couple. He tagged along on the back of a motorcycle to go to the concert with some of my high school friends who road-tripped to join me at the show. The rest was history that made my marching band, flute and piano playing history look like geeky child’s play.He and that motorcycle buddy had a history of seeking out music and hitting the road for it. In fact, my first concert was a Blue Oyster Cult show with that buddy. Once my then boyfriend and I got so “caught up in you” with 38 Special, he made me mixed tapes and our dating life included quite a few shows that continued into marriage. We saw Rush, who put me to sleep after an early morning work shift, but who stimulated my husband’s love for heavy metal. We saw a five-band show at a no longer existent stadium in Philadelphia headlined by Journey with lines for the women’s room wrapping around the stadium so that my husband (then boyfriend) and his friends ushered me stealth-like into the men’s room. That contrasted with a ZZ Top concert at the pre-sports stadium City Island in Harrisburg when I felt something warm on the back of my leg and turned around to see the guy behind me taking a leak.
Xponential Music Festival on Camden riverfront 2015
Things got better. We swear we heard Dave Matthews play in a bar in his hometown of Charlottesville, Va., before he got famous. We heard Bruce Hornsby. We jammed with Robert Cray. We saw the Who, the Rolling Stones, Queensryche and Aerosmith. We lived in the same town as Phish and wishfully thought we heard them practicing in the house behind ours. Nope, it wasn’t them. We saw Phish later at different venues. In Pittsburgh, we had season tickets to the symphony and we saw formerly big name bands like the Hooters, Ian Hunter, and the Outlaws play in a small club.
Bonnaroo 2012 in Manchester, Tennessee
When I was pregnant with our son, we went to see Arlo Guthrie perform at an idyllic Vermont summer venue. My belly danced along with Arlo’s vibes. I bought Arlo’s children’s tapes and storybooks by which we put the baby to sleep. He grew up calling him Uncle Arlo, and whenever Arlo and his family band played in our area, our family joined them.Everything changed when we moved to Stockholm into a furnished apartment where a guitar sat waiting in the closet. My husband had more free time that year and the guitar sang out to him. He began teaching himself from a book. We enjoyed a few nights out at clubs hearing local bands playing covers of bands like the Spin Doctors and Nirvana. We learned to speak Swedish – well, easy Swedish – by studying lyrics and listening to a Swedish folk favorite named Magnus Uggla.When we returned stateside, one of our first purchases was a guitar. My husband continued to fool around with it on his own. Our son started taking lessons. He also played a string bass in the school orchestra. For a while, he played electric bass. As he improved and expanded to guitar and then needed better guitars and teachers, my husband and I found new opportunity. We connected with a former rocker who had been in several bands to be his instructor. Then, my husband starting taking lessons, and finally, I picked up the discarded bass and took lessons, too.The family band should have been born, but our son preferred to play for his own enjoyment, I got too busy, and my husband branched out to find other guys to play with. We tried to convince our daughter to play drums, but she was too busy with horses.On the night before our daughter started high school, we took her to see Aaron Lewis of Staind play an acoustic show at our local theater. She was sleepy and her head began to nod until it dropped and hit against the theater armrest. She chipped her front tooth in half. The sacrifices we make for music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZRZLfYiISs
Apologies for bad camera holding on this video of Incision playing "I Hate Everything About You" featuring Patrick Lynch on vocals
My husband’s dreams of a band were not dead. He and some work colleagues decided to play a show on a tractor trailer bed at another colleague’s home. Dubbed Goodstock (based on his partner’s name Goodspeed), they invited everyone they could think of to picnic and party at their concert with their newly formed band Incision fronted by our son on guitar and vocals and the former rocker guitar teacher.Now, it was time to go even bigger on our musical pilgrimages. I was about to turn 50 and had been too young for Woodstock. I had never been to a big music festival, so for my birthday I asked the family to take me to Bonnaroo. We squatted in our Eurovan on a postage stamp sized grassy spot surrounded by partying 20somethings. Pasties, dreadlocks, tie-dye, furry costumes, batman, overflowing porta potties, dust storms, and music – that joyous music – created a memorable birthday. We discovered new bands like Grouplove and Gary Clark Jr. and listened to legends like Alice Cooper, Radiohead, Phish, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. No trip to Tennessee is complete, however, without a side trip to Nashville, which we hit to balance out the music menu for a few days. We toured the Country Music Hall of Fame and jammed with unknown country artists trying to stake their claim in the small bars around town.
Jack Johnson projected at FarmAid in Hershey / Photo by Deborah Lynch
FarmAid came to Hershey and I got to gush over my all-time favorite chill artist Jack Johnson while also soaking in the old school country of Willie Nelson, and the modern vibes of Dave Matthews, Kenny Chesney, Grace Potter, and, of course, Neil Young, whose songs went on endlessly.The past few years, we have continued the festival trend with two Firefly Festivals and one time ferrying across the Delaware to the Xponential Festival on the Camden waterfront. Sometimes though, my husband and I divide and conquer, particularly when one of us says “Hell No” to bands like Hell Yeah – that’s me. My best friend who is a Pearl Jam Ten Club member has generously included me on her sojourns to soak in their long and amazing set lists. My husband finds guys who enjoy Ozzie and Kiss with him.Music has helped me to relax, to connect with the world, to expand creativity, and to meet my life partner and love. Guster, Puddle of Mudd, Collective Soul, Rise Against, Motley Crue, Third Eye Blind, Phil Collins, Ian Moore, Beck, Three Doors Down, Breaking Benjamin, Avenged Sevenfold, Nickelback, Live, Counting Crows, Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Dave Mason, North Mississippi Allstars, Steve Earle, the list goes on and on -- the soundtrack of our lives. Music is for all ages, places, and times.