Thursday 7 April 2011

The Joys of Waiting

I'm at my desk working late, plugged in through the Internet to the Mighty Q in Toronto, rocking out to their "live drive" segment in which they play cuts from live concerts.  It's always great music, and sometimes my appreciation for a band or their song really grows hearing it performed outside of the studio.

Such was the case today, listening to Fleetwood Mac performing "Don't Stop" - one of the worst Fleetwood Mac tunes ever recorded, to my ears.  But in this version they perform with a live marching band, a la "Tusk" - and delivered one of the best live Fleetwood Mac tunes ever recorded, to my ears.  I was rocking out the cubicle here alone after 5:00.  Watch it here:





I resolved to YouTube it, and enjoy it again and again.  And then I remembered the days when you'd hear just a song on the radio, or just a few bars of a song (as happened with one particularly cool tune in the late seventies when I heard the last 16 bars, sourced the album and have enjoyed every tune on that disc ever since) and you couldn't wait to find the album, carefully unwrap it, gingerly place it on the turntable, take control of the arm and lower the needle gently to the groove, and then groove along - over and over again.


Not only is today's I-Pod generation missing the joy of the b-side and the bad tunes on the way to the one tune they bought the album to hear, but they are missing the sweet agony of waiting until they can afford to buy the album, or waiting to find it in the store, or buying the wrong album and discovering it's pretty cool anyway. 

They've never hummed a few bars to the scruffy dude at Sam the Record Man and followed him to the exact spot in the store where musical gold awaits, (although I hear there's an app for that). 

They're missing the joy of waiting and wanting and longing as they hum along to their collective theme song, "I Want it All (and I Want it Now)" . 

 
(That's a song from Queen's album, The Miracle.  You can find it in the  Rock section , under the Qs.  Back of the store.)

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