One of My Favorite Live Shows
Shelby Lynne — Williamsburg Music Hall, July 8, 2008
Live Music
Shelby Lynne — Williamsburg Music Hall, July 8, 2008
THE PREAMBLE
It’s no secret that life moves rather quickly in New York City; there’s a reason why “a New York Minute” is a thing. This speed impacts all parts of life in NYC, especially relationships.
So if you’re the type of person who is emotionally walled off or petrified of a long or short-term relationship, you would be best to avoid a move to The Big Apple …unless you’re married (and even then, all bets are off).
In the spring of 2007, I had met a young woman at a friend's birthday party. We chatted, had too many drinks, and before I knew it, we were closing out some Greenpoint, Brooklyn dive bar at 4 am…and I had no God damn idea where I was.
I could see Manhattan, but unless I was willing to swim across the East River (which is a horrible idea even if you haven’t been drinking for eight hours), I was stranded. As I looked around this gentrifying part of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I had no idea how to get home: “How the fuck do I get home from here?”
“You can crash with me if you want.”
I did want.
Within a month, we were spending all of our nights together. Within four months, we had decided to move in together.
At the time, I was sharing a nice but small two-bedroom on the fourth floor of a five-story walk-up on the Upper East Side. A marginally larger and more modern railroad apartment in Greenpoint with a woman I had fallen in love with had more appeal.
My friend and roommate was a bit more pragmatic: “You sure about this? You don’t really know her.”
“Of course! I wouldn’t do it unless I was.”
Here’s where it gets a bit complicated.
Since I was a bit older, I had said I didn’t want to move in unless it would be for good. It didn’t have to be forever (what’s forever anyway), but it at least had to be long-ish. And she was totally on board. She was into it.
I would soon discover, the chasm between “long-ish” for a 26-year-old and a 39-year-old is a lot larger than one may think.
The relationship was beginning to disintegrate right around when I discovered Shelby Lynne’s Just A Little Lovin’, her sad bastard album loaded with Dusty Springfield songs.
Call it serendipity.
To try to build a bridge over our ever-widening chasm, I bought two tickets to Shelby Lynne’s show at The Williamsburg Music Hall in July of that year (2008).
Unfortunately, by early June, our relationship had gotten bad.
Very bad.
One Saturday morning in mid-June, I sat in the living room with tears running out of my eyes while she hammered that final nail in the coffin.
She stood in the doorway, with her arms crossed, with what I presume was ice running through her veins: “I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
“You don’t even want to try?”
“No. I don’t.” And then bluntly told me she was going upstate for a party.
“You just found out about it?”
“No, I just didn’t tell you about it.”
And as these things shake out, it was her apartment, so it was me who got the boot. To prove she wasn’t heartless, she said I could “stay as long as it took to find a place.”
I sat there heartbroken, sure. And a big chunk of my tears were related to that …but do you understand the logistical nightmare of trying to find an apartment in any of the five boroughs on such short notice?!
“As long as it took” — fuck, I wanted out that afternoon. And if you know anything about NYC real estate, finding any apartment is often a Herculean endeavor.
After I cried myself dry, I got cleaned up and began what I presumed would result in another round of tears in the evening. But, by the time she came back Sunday night, I had found a place seven blocks away.
I got lucky.
Very lucky.
Why did I stay so close to her?
Love is nothing if it’s not hopeful.
And I really liked the neighborhood.
THE CONCERT
By July 1, I was in my new place, and along with sushi, Just A Little Lovin’ had morphed into sustenance. I needed sushi to say alive, but I needed those songs to remind me that I wasn’t only alive, I wasn’t alone.
When I said I needed you
You said you would always stay
It wasn’t me who changed but you and now you’ve gone away
Don’t you see that now you’ve gone
And I’m left here on my own
That I have to follow you and beg you to come home
Whatever the pain, music is almost always the cure.
A couple of days before the show, I sent her a text asking her if she still wanted to go to the Shelby Lynne show with me. A terse text came back: “Only if you can’t find anyone else.”
I smirked as I typed my reply: “K, I’ll look.”
Of course, I didn’t bother looking.
What I was hoping for the night of the show was a night of tipsy fun, like we used to have. And maybe, just maybe, we would end up going home together for a tipsy romp, just like we used to have.
As it often does, the universe had a different plan.
We got to the Williamsburg Music Hall a little early. Neither of us had been and were struck by the size of the place. With a capacity of 650, no matter where you stood, you had a good view. The intimacy of the place was going to suit the songs from Just A Little Lovin’.
Despite there not being a bad place to stand, my ex and I secured some very good real estate.
Very good.
First, Shelby Lynne’s band came out and started noodling around before segueing into the intro for Shelby Lynne to saunter out.
Lynne was dressed to kill. And she began her onslaught with Dusty Springfield’s “Just a Little Lovin’.”
I don’t think my ex was prepared for the power of Lynne’s performance.
Even I was surprised.
Our proximity to the stage played a role, as did the skill of Lynne and her band.
But in all fairness, the potency of these songs was rooted in the rawness of our still fresh break-up. All of that combined with masterful songs by masterful artists about the very emotions we were feeling really heightens the tension.
Just a little lovin’
Early in the mornin’
Beats a cup of coffee
For starting off the day
Just a little lovin’
When the world is yawnin’
Makes you wake up feeling
Good things are coming your way
Those good days were gone for us.
I was certain my ex had not experienced anything like this, and to be honest, neither had I. I had seen intimate shows before, but never like this. This was like having Shelby Lynne perform in your living room.
Lynne leaned into the second song, “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” a gut punch. It would’ve taken a heart much blacker than mine not to be impacted by lyrics like:
Every time you go away, I always say
This time it’s goodbye, dear
Loving you the way I do
I take you back. Without you I’d die dear
Knowing I love you so
I had already done all my crying on that Saturday morning three weeks before. But, at least to my knowledge, she hadn’t done any. She inched in front of me and stared right at Shelby Lynne. My ex had her back to me, but I began to think she was crying a little.
By the time Shelby and her band slid into the third song, “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” I was almost certain that she was crying.
You don’t have to say you love me just be close at hand
You don’t have to stay forever I will understand
Believe me, believe me I can’t help but love you
But believe me I’ll never tie you down
Left alone with just a memory
Life seems dead and quite unreal
All that’s left is loneliness there’s nothing left to feel
At this point, I grabbed her around the waist to let her know I was there. It wasn’t sexual. I had no false idea of reconciliation. I didn’t want either of those things. I just wanted her to know she wasn’t alone. It was then that I felt the warm, wet teardrops fall on my forearm.
While I may have gone into the night hoping to get laid, watching the woman I was still in love with react so viscerally to these songs, all I wanted to do was anything I could to ease whatever pain she was feeling. I knew that pain all too well, so sex wasn’t on my mind. Okay, not at the forefront anyway.
I may be an asshole, but I’m not a monster.
The beauty of a skilled performer, a professional, and a true artist is that they know how to read the room. And Shelby Lynne is all of those and more. So, I think she could sense the room needed a break.
I know my ex did.
So when we all saw her strap on the Telecaster, a bit of the heaviness in the room evaporated.
Shelby and her band ambled into “Willie and Laura Mae Jones” off Just A Little Lovin’. A song that tells the tale of life in the holler. Still a song about loss, but more about relationships, family, and community …regardless of bullshit like someone’s melatonin level:
Willie and Laura Mae Jones
Were our neighbors as long time back
They lived right down the road from us
In a shack just like our shack
We worked in the fields together
And we learned to count on each other
When you live off the land
You don’t have time to think
About another man’s color
Then came her one “hit,” off I Am Shelby Lynne, “Gonna Get Back” — the song that won her the Best New Artist Grammy in 2001. Somehow she was the Best New Artist that year after over ten years in the music business and five previous albums on major labels. Go figure.
[Fun fact: At that Grammy ceremony, Lynne performed “The Difficult Kind” with Sheryl Crow. I have heard this version hundreds of times, and it guts me every single time — “there ain’t nothing like regret, to remind you you’re alive.” Check it out]
And then Shelby and co. began one of her more beautiful songs, “Johnny Met June.” The story of Johnny Cash and June Carter is known by most, but Lynne’s song isn’t about when they met — at least not here on earth.
Johnny Cash only lived a few months after his wife, June, died. And on the day he died, Shelby Lynne wrote “Johnny Met June” — about their reunion in heaven.
The double whammy of the next two songs, “Breakfast in Bed” and “I Only Want to Be With You,” opened the floodgates for my ex.
First came “Breakfast in Bed”:
And no-one has to know
You’ve come here again
Darling it will be
Like it’s always been before
Come on over here
Breakfast in bed
And a kiss or three
You don’t have to say you love me
Breakfast in bed
Nothing need be said
Ain’t no need
Given our proximity to the stage, Shelby had by now noticed my ex crying.
Before she went into “I Only Want To Be With You,” she took a seat on the small stage riser and did a little crowd work, and then zeroed in on my ex. I have no recollection of what she was saying, but Lynne was staring right at her.
It could be argued that this crowd work was all part of Lynne’s performance. She was a professional and knew the power of the songs, so I’m sure she knew there would be at least one person reacting viscerally in the audience.
The cynic will say Shelby Lynne is a performer, and even as cynical as I am, what I was witnessing somehow felt different. My ex-girlfriend was really crying, and her tears were real, and Lynne appeared to be showing genuine empathy, as if to say: “I know sugar, I know.”
It was powerful.
Very powerful.
There is a horribly out-of-focus shot of this moment, red devil eyes and all. But it is so embarrassingly bad, and it’s not worth including.
Still seated, Lynne started in “I Only Want To Be With You,” singing directly to my ex-girlfriend. I think Lynne may have thought we were in love. She wasn’t wrong. We just weren’t together.
As my ex listened to the lyrics, she stopped short of openly sobbing.
I don’t know what it is that makes me love you so
I only know I never want to let you go
’Cause you started something, can’t you see
That ever since we met you’ve had a hold on me
It happens to be true, I only want to be with you
It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do
I want to spend each moment of the day with you
Look what has happened with just one kiss
I never knew that I could be in love like this
It’s crazy but it’s true, I only want to be with you
Shelby Lynne and her band closed out the night with “Telephone” off Identity Crisis. And it seemed a fitting song to close out the night.
My ex-girlfriend's attitude and coldness on that Saturday morning three weeks before left me wondering if she had loved me at all. I needed to know. And rather than ask, I thought I’d take her to a show where I knew these songs would be like throwing little music daggers at her.
So, if I’m honest, I initially wanted her to go with me out of revenge.
On this July night, I got to witness her grieve about the collapse of our relationship just as I did that Saturday morning. And find out that she did love me.
So, what makes this one of my favorite concerts?
It’s simple — I felt myself grow up just a little more that night.
I feel growing up is a lifelong process. It isn’t about the job or the mortgage or the kids or the car or the vacations or the 401k; from where I sit, that’s adulting. And that’s important, but growing up is learning to understand you have a responsibility to others. A responsibility to treat them with kindness when they’re hurting, regardless of how bad they may have hurt you in the past.
If you’ve ever been in love, really in love, you don’t want to see that person hurt or suffer. You want to protect them from that. So, yea, maybe getting her to go with me after the break-up began as a selfish and vengeful act, but it didn’t end that way.
As I watched her react to the songs and felt her lean into me, I came to understand that we both hurt; we just showed it differently.
I knew her background, and I’m not sure she knew how to show her hurt. In hindsight, at that time, I think hurt for her was anger. And for me on that night, it became important to show her I was there. Yea, the relationship failed, and I may have been hurt, as was she, but I like to think she understood that we didn’t love each other any less and that the anger was pointless.
But please don’t think I am some saint — I still wanted to take her home.
As I said, I may be an asshole, but I’m not a monster.
We stood at the bar after the show, having a drink, not saying too much. What needed to be said? Besides, I still had that devil whispering in my ear about taking her back to my new apartment, but he was beginning to accept defeat.
The truth be told, I think it’s a much thinner line between asshole and monster than most people realize.
So you may be wondering how the night ended.
We walked home hand in hand, not speaking, still feeling the power of the concert.
When it came time to part, we kissed each other the way friends or family members kiss each other — firm-lipped and closed-mouthed.
We broke, looked each other in the eye, and nodded. There wasn’t anything to say.
Shelby Lynne had said the things for us that we either couldn’t or wouldn’t say to each other.
It would be a year before we saw each other again and took a stab at reconciliation. But that’s a story for another time …and includes seeing Adele at The Beacon Theater.