As I enter the function hall, the man I am there to watch, “Devon,” is standing by the door staring at the stage on the opposite end of the long side of the rectangular room.  He is there in rumpled tweed top coat, T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.  Hair, as always, does not look like it has seen a comb since the Nixon administration.  It's a look that works for him.

“Hey, man, you prompted me to come out of hiding.  I haven’t heard you guys play in about 8 years, and had to do it.”

He smiles, nodding his head up and down similar to Harpo Marx.

“You guys practice at all?”

“Nope, never.”

The band has played together for over 30 years.  Local people in the community around my age grew up partying hard to these guys playing in small venues.  The band members all have their own professions now, but they play for local charities.  A PTA wants a fundraiser, the band will play if the PTA gets the hall, rents what is needed, picks up their bar tab, and gets them home safely. 

And they are good.  Really, really good.

This charitable event is for the local food pantry.

“I see PACH hit you up, and there are two other bands.  You going on last?”

“Oh yeah, we want to make sure the booze is flowing so they won’t notice the mistakes.”

“Same songs?’

“Oh yeah.”

I knew Devon through my local political involvement that started 20 years ago as he was an assistant in one of the town departments.  Quiet, friendly, and gentle.  A neighbor who’d grown up in town convinced my ex and I to go to one of these functions.  We were leery, thinking the music would be awful, and we did not want to go, only doing so to support the charity, which I believe was to raise money for a family needing to retrofit their home for a young child disabled in a car accident.

It was at that first concert that I came to realize just who Devon was.  Because when he is up there playing that guitar and singing he comes shining through.  I had been wrong about him, which was terribly humbling to me, as I am usually a good judge of character.

Devon retired from the government job a couple years ago.  Counted the hours down to exactly the amount needed to reach the pension and punched out.  He now teaches guitar and plays in 5 or 6 local bands.  He has three guitars up there on stage with him, switching back and forth between them and waiving his beer bottle when near empty to be reloaded while he plays.  Not “let’s get sloppy drunk and fall down” reloading depicted in the movies about the gifted rock star taken down by drugs and alcohol.  Not Ozzie Osbourne wasted, biting off a bat’s head.  The kind of reloading the participants do.  A night out having a couple beers and having fun.

Being out of a community for a decade meant there were few in attendance I knew.  I mingled awkwardly through the first two bands and then set up as I always do for this band.  I set up off to the side, slightly behind the amps so I had a good view of Devon.

As they started, fiftysomethings bounded from the tables and went right to the dance floor in front of the band.  All in their teens and twenties in that moment listening to Aerosmith, Bob Seger and the like, played by guys smiling away, laughing, and playing the sounds from memory with nary a hitch.  And I knew which songs were coming when.  No change in the order.

The band announces a brief break because, it is said, Devon needs to go to the bathroom.  He later appears outside to have a cigarette and is tended to by his wife who informs him beers have been brought up to the stage and put on the amps.  Introductions are made, Devon’s wife and I talk of mutual friends who moved to their community and whose kids went to school with their kids as Devon disappears back into the function hall with a new burst of nicotine coursing through his veins.

I go inside and move to a different spot to observe and listen, sometimes closing my eyes and just feeling the music reverberate against my chest causing an involuntary smile to appear on my face.  In that spot a friend who also plays guitar in bands was standing and smiling to boot.

“Jesus, these guys are good.” He says in acknowledgement as we smiled at each other.  “There’s nothing better.” He exclaims, as he shakes involuntarily.

“What is?”

He pointed up to the stage with his beer bottle, “Playing with a bunch of people dancing in front of you like that?  It is such a rush.  It is SUCH a fucking rush.”  He goes off into his own world for a second, smiles, shakes his head, and comes back saying simply, “Oh, man.” while looking at me with a big smile on his face.  The kind of smile I watch to see come across Devon’s when he is playing.

A very good local band plays for a charity event, and everybody comes away a winner.

Even the guys standing off in the corner observing.

 Which triggered recollection of another band I enjoyed watching live.  Certainly better music out there, but lyrics and expressions that ring true for any pursuit be it music, acting, writing, or just plain old, basic giving to others...