10.51 You Gotta Fight

A few weeks ago I went to see the band Stars. They are celebrating 20 years as a band and so decided to mark this in a different way. It was at Crow’s Theatre in the east end of Toronto and was a hybrid of a concert and a play. There was a set, the band members played themselves, and there were scenes between the songs. Their goal was to show the audience what it’s like to be a working band for 20 years - all the fights, affairs, marriages, kids, success, failures. They would do a scene, tell you a story, and play a song from their catalogue that reflected it.

I’ve been a fan of Stars since the beginning. 20 years I’ve been with them. I like the two singers, and how they seem to often speak to each other through the lyrics. I like the melodrama because sometimes life is dramatic. They’ve been there through half my life. Breakups, deaths, accidents. There might’ve been breaks, but I’ve always come back.

At some point during the show, the lead singer, Torquil Campbell, sat on a step in the aisle and started talking to an audience member. This led to him explaining how ten years ago he fell apart after his father died. He explained that it was devastating because his father was a fighter, but in the end, he lost. As we all do. And after some time, Torquil was able to realize that he needed to pick up that fight that his father left off.

You gotta fight.

And I lost it, sitting by myself at the very back corner of the theatre. I went to the show myself, as I often do. I like to not be a bother to anyone, and find a seat that no one wants. I crawled up all the way to the back and took the seat as far up as I could find. The way the lights were, I was in the darkness, like I wasn’t there. Fine by me.

Torquil talked about his dad and when he was done, he stood up and scanned the crowd. He took the time to look from one end to the other, giving us the time and space to fully digest and process what he talked about. And he settled on me. Back in the corner. Look, I know there are theatre lights and as a performer, you can’t really see out in the crowd. He wasn’t looking at me, but it doesn’t matter. I felt him looking at me.

It’s what I’ve been thinking about a lot - how to engage with serious things through art? I’ve done it before, or at least tried to. Lately, in terms of writing and performing, I’ve been focused on fun stuff. Gotten addicted to the laughs from the audience. More and more I’m seeing and thinking and feeling my way through how other artists tackle really hard stuff.

With that short scene with Torquil, I feel it was a breakthrough for me. I usually cannot tolerate an earnest and boring attempt at emotional connection. Earnestness isn’t inherently wrong, it’s just more of a one-way street. It’s not a dialogue. Nothing is really gained. After the Stars show, I was thinking about how if you push through that earnestness, that you lay bare what you’re trying to say, maintain a control over it, yet allow it to push and pull you in the directions you need to go.

And this is a fight. A fight to take what you’ve got as a person, all the pain and hurt and hate and love, and figure out what to do with it and how to express it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Thanks for 20 years.