3. Stu Larsen - The Mile - The Woodlands Centre, Stornoway Wow! Really? Stu Larsen in the Top 3 - is anyone surprised?! Well you should be. And you shouldnt, obviously. I feel like I let Stu down a bit because I tend not to draw that much attention to his music on Facebook. I know I shared his tour poster just the other day but a good friend wouldve done that months ago. His debut album is amazing, beyond anything I expected and his live performance continues to improve exponentially, inconceivably so! I dont know why Im so private about this; I saw Stu play 6 times in 6 different towns and cities last year, including Nashville - a deliberate detour and the best birthday present Ive been given since my 21st. (Limited Australian tour edition red vinyl of U2s Under A Blood Red Sky by the way; tough competition!) So out of the 6 times I saw Stu perform last year I picked only 1 song for my Hottest 100? Still not doing much to promote this guy am I?! The thing is, I dont think my emo ramblings can do a whole lot here. Why this song? Why this performance? Well, its personal. Its so incredibly personal that I dont expect even my family-in-law to fully appreciate it (luckily their already fans). This song is not inaccessible, not at all. This song is emotive. Its poetic; vivid. For Stu it relates a time, a place, a feeling. For me it does exactly the same. A few of you (family) will know that time and place; its part of our collective heritage. The feeling is a kind of nostalgia which is sometimes hopeful but other times bereft. To feel connected to a place when youre so long absent and so far from it, as I was when hearing this song in Stornoway, is such a powerful thing. I suspect Ive heard this song at every one of Stus gigs over the last two and a half years since we met. Maybe a dozen or so times. I distinctly remember hearing it at the first show; it was the moment (5mins long) I gave up a little piece of my heart to the guy - the moment we became connected. The Mile, geometaphorically, is our common ground. Our collective heritage, even though we come from different families, from different parts of the country. The Mile is one of those songs that transports me there every time I hear it. I can only imagine what Stu is thinking when he plays it. So I cant explain what happened in Stornoway. I was tired. I was alone in the crowd (Aaron couldnt come with me). I guess I just meditated on it a lot. That distant place. You feel very far from anywhere in Stornoway! Something snapped. I cried. It was awesome.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 03:48:49 +0000
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