i feel like i have so much to write about. i don't know what to channel first, though. i attended an amnesty meeting tonight, only the third one i've been able to make this semester. i've forgotten what it feels like to seal the envelope on a letter i've written to a government official in a repressive state. that's really fresh in my mind...

but i had a really great experience last night that i really ought to tell you about. it's by no means once-in-a-lifetime, but definitely once in a very long time. and every time it gets better and better.

despite my better judgement, i drove to omaha last night. i had about 200 pages of reading to do. i had a 2-page paper to write on said readings. luckily, i got all my work done at the paper early last night. all of it. this freed me up to catch up on homework!

nope. i went to a show.

for the last five years or so, i've been a regular on the grüvis malt message board for the majority of those five years, i've been in nebraska (more specifically, four of those five years). and every time grüvis malt or gavin castleton go out on tour, i suggest they stop in nebraska.

well, four years later, gavin was in omaha. and even though he wasn't touring solo (he is on tour playing keys for facing new york [myspace page], doing some of his own solo stuff here and there, too), and even though i didn't have anyone to go with me, and even though it required me to put about 110 extra miles on my car (and a detour that took me through dark, desolate corn fields! creepy ashland, nebraska, i don't like you), it was totally worth it.

it was absolutely worth it.

first off, the set was amazing. i had never heard facing new york before, and was afraid that i wouldn't like them much. i'd heard that they were more rock than anything i'd heard from gavin before, which is true. but i didn't expect them to be so... so... good.

meter changes. odd drum rhythms. fret-patting guitar phrases. puffy hair. it was awesome. i couldn't discern much of the vocals, but i was much more focuses on the music, which was well-written, tight, and entertaining.

and they got a curtain call. after making sure the headlining band was cool with them playing one more, they finished their set on a really energetic note, much to the appreciation of the admittedly small - we'll call it "intimate" - crowd at o'leaver's pub. it's a small venue, so the 30-or-so people there actually filled it out pretty well.

surprisingly, the show wasn't even the best part. after the performance i approached gavin, the musician i'd gone to see, and said hello. he recognized me from other shows and remembered that i was from the message board. we walked outside and talked a bit.

hah. a bit, i says. we talked for more than an hour. mostly one-on-one, but sometimes the lead singer of facing new york would stop in and talk a bit. here and there were a couple of breaks, but really it was just me speaking with one of my musical heroes on a very personal level.

and not just about menial things. i mean i asked the obligatory, "how's the tour going?" and "what's next after this?" stuff, but we also talked about really personal stuff. i asked him at least one question that i'd wanted to ask him since his first solo records (i prefaced it with, "i hope this isn't too personal a question...," and he said "uh, i'm not gay." awesome). i'd share here, but i don't think it would be appropriate. just know that it was related to his music, which, if you listen to gavin castleton, you'll know is very personal.

something entertaining: we were talking outside the venue and this young woman, maybe 22 or 23 years old, approached us with a big smile on her face. "you guys were great," she said to both of us. she proceeded to talk to us as if we were both in the band. big smile at gavin. big smile at me. "what were you guys called again?" and "this your first time in omaha?," stuff like that. she was obviously aloof. gavin got her to ask the guys from facing new york if they were the gavin castletons. it was great.

(fun stuff tends to happen to me at shows when talking with either gavin or brendan [1/2 vocals for grüvis malt] - remember the dane cook story?)

once she walked away i said to him, "i think she thought i was on stage with you." "oh, she definitely did," he says, after mumbling "where are we...."

and we kept talking. we talked about nebraska's football culture, city sizes (is it that weird of me to know the size of omaha, lincoln, providence and nebraska's memorial stadium? he thought so.), the news mars volta record, his music, facing new york, ebu gogo, a prospective label deal....

eventually he headed out and i was on my way back to lincoln, smile on my face and two new cds in my hand: facing new york's newest lp and gavin's latest ep, hospital hymns. i'm listening to it right now, and it's... it's beautiful. sister release to grace land. beauty vs. ugliness.

the thing about gavin's music is that i don't just love the melodies, the rhythms and the musicianship that he brings. i love the concept behind his stuff. he refuses to remain boxed into any sort of genre - he doesn't even just rap or sing or play keyboard, he does all of that and then some. he produces. he writes. he croons. really, he can do it all. and he does it with fluency and a liquid grace that just seems to fit him.

i ended up back at the dn office, reading more, sleeping for about 3 hours on the opinion couch, then up at 8am to buy the book i had to read and write about from the bookstore as soon as it opened. i ended up skipping my first class and getting my paper written just in time to make it to my second - and the paper was probably above-average quality, which is kinda cool (but it was a little short).

but given the circumstances - the lack of sleep, the backseat academics, the not-being-home-since-monday-morning-and-now-
it's-technically-wednesday-morning, the poor diet i've kept today, the amount of coughing i've done - it was absolutely worth it.

no question.