The near-empty bottle of Miller High Life catches the thumps of bass guitar, vibrates in my hand. I hold it by the neck; I always hold my beer bottles by the neck. The music is dangerously loud, but my ears are blocked, a curious benefit of lingering sinus issues. The lighting is drastic, insufficient, universal to band bars.
This could be fifteen years ago. This could be Pittsburgh; in my hand could be an Iron City Beer. But it isn't fifteen years ago and this is San Francisco. And that's not The Toll playing on stage, it's Limbeck.
The past is just the past and I'm damn glad to be here and be now. The boys of Limbeck are gifted. Watching the thing that the four—and sometimes five—of them become when they play their songs is watching a true human miracle. Music—and not didactic pontificating—is the language of miracles and no god is needed.
To me, that transformation is the proof of a band. Not whether I like their music or not, not whether they play well or not, but that presence on stage that is so much more than the sum of the players.
I happen to love Limbeck's music, and especially their words. It's a privilege to witness the joy that each and all of them radiate when they're up there. Liking what they do instead of just doing whatever the fuck they like.
Last night was a very good night for me, the first one in a very long time. It was a good night for LOML as well. In a sense, Limbeck continues this “old home week” I've been experiencing (but have yet to write about): on my very first trip to Tucson, during my very first in-person time with Sam ever, we went to Starr Skates in downtown Tucson to see Limbeck. They played in a 600 sq ft space; we stood ten feet away from them—and we were near the back! Sam inched closer and I stood back watching him melt into the performance. The set of his shoulders almost imperceptibly shifted; he cocked his head forward and down a bit, exuding intent to become part of it all.
In him, I saw myself. Or at least saw a deep-down commonality between us. Something without words, something demonstrable only because you've demonstrated the same thing before. Something knowable only because you already know it.
To talk with the Limbeck boys is to talk with friendly, happy people. Genuine, decent guys whose immense, accessible talents have not produced immense, inaccessible egos.
Go see them if you get the chance. And pray to whomever that you do get the chance. And if that doesn't work, create the chance yourself. In any case, go buy their albums. They deserve to be heard and you deserve to get to know Limbeck's music.
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