Mule

Promenade in green...

This show was 1,000 years old. Outside at the muddy base of a un-aging mountain range. Strings of lights cutting the campsite from the natural order around it. The crowd traveling down the mountains to our place. Our rendevous. Two men in the middle of the group packed in tight around them. The stomping starts. The dancing follows instantly. The hollering and whistling is constant. The group tightens up, jumping and swaying following a boot hitting the floorboards. The two men skipped the tinder and poured kerosene into the musical fire pit. The stomping is everyone now. It's frenetic. If it was 1,000 years ago it would be drums and sticks and chants and here it built to this defining moment: Dave Van Ronk's "Green Green Rocky Road".

Hearing Tony Polecastro and Charlie Parr play that song in that tribal moment in that place is one of the peak musical experiences of my entire life. It was a drum circle, and sweat lodge, and Johnny Cash's middle fingers. A trance. They hacked at it and hacked at it, subconsciously committed to complete exhaustion.

It was that good. Really. Coming together in this way is an inherent part of being human that we say out loud enough. We remove ourselves from the momentum of the arguing, the constant cycle of fear-mongering, watching the sky fall yet again, for yet another reason. It’s a soul-level way of flying those Johnny Cash fingers at the negativity to say: “It’s gonna be ok.”

-Matt