On Expectations

Last night, and event occurred in my life that I had been waiting for and fantasizing about for over twenty years. I was finally able to see my favorite band play live. Dead Can Dance's last tour was over five years ago, and before that, tours were infrequent and out of my ability to attend as a youth. I couldn't attend the previous tour because of extremely tight finances. If there had been a way, I would have made it happen, but it came down to a choice between the concert and rent. I still deliberated, but, ultimately, reason won out.

Since 1991, at age 11, I had determined that I must see Dead Can Dance play live before I could die. I would go looking stylish in a suit, with a beautiful woman on my arm, and I would watch them play, and joy would overwhelm me, tears spilling down my face.

On August 26, 2012, my wife and I arrived at the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall. I was looking stylish in my suit, and my wife looked gorgeous. We were sat through a riveting performance by the percussionist touring with DCD, David Kuckhermann. We were skeptical when he said he was going to perform a song on his tambourine, but it was brilliant. He is a true talent.

Then the moment came. The stage lit, and Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard stepped out from behind the curtains and began weaving their magic. It was a two hour and fifteen minute performance that included three encores. The sound was amazing, perfectly balanced to highlight the brilliant array of both the subtle and the dramatic. All of the performers showed intense mastery and genius.

It was a phenomenal concert.

It was not the concert that I wanted to see.

I knew that my expectations would work against me, so I had tried to limit them. However, they did not play a single one of the dozens of their songs that would have reduced me to sobbing. Only two of the songs they played were more than three albums old, and my deepest emotional attachments are to their earlier work. They played material primarily from their new album and their side projects. I have spent too little time with the new album to have it in my heart, and while I enjoy their side projects (Perry's particularly), their song choices were not the ones that would have resonated with me.

I left the theater stunned at my lack of emotion.

For context, I weep easily at concerts. Something about them moves me tremendously, especially when I have loved a band for a long time. It is not sadness, or even joy, but emotional attachment that affects me so deeply. I bawled when I saw The Cure play "Same Deep Water As You," and when Peter Murphy performed "Marlene Dietrich's Favorite Poem." There are even more ridiculous, less manly events that I can remember. However, at this, my most anticipated concert event, I was left feeling, well, very little.

Don't get me wrong, I feel incredibly fortunate to have seen them play, and I will forever be grateful that I had the chance. I suppose it was what I needed, but not what I wanted. I know this is probably whiny, first-world problemy stuff, but I am very sad. I know that, as artists, they want to play the music they are passionate about, which, with any artist, is their most recent material. The music I want to hear is 20+ years old, and is probably worn very thin for them artistically.

I guess what I am most sad about is the fact that I will never see the concert I want to see.

The fact that the girl sitting next to me smelled of Italian dressing and piss didn't help, either.