There was a short period in my growing up phase (which sometimes I’m afraid I haven’t passed through) when I looked forward to, and dreaded, this yearly intersection of completely unlike events: spring and the Maine high school basketball tournament.
The tournament was a big deal in the state, with tons of fans in attendance at various venues and with near-continuous television converge. Even though my high school was never in contention, I was glued to the set, mostly searching out the yearly upset stories. (I’ve always loved those classic David vs. Goliath confrontations.)
Spring? Eh, I could do without it. I know, I know: It’s a weird season to dislike, but I used to have an almost fetish-like love of winter. When spring rolled around, with its supposed beauty and promise, all I saw was mud and black flies. Sixteen-year-olds have funny ways of looking at things.
One permanent impression left from that yearly sporting event is Fleetwood Mac’s song “Go Your Own Way.” During the tourney, local television stations carried ads for upcoming sessions with the action torqued up by Lindsey Buckingham’s impassioned guitar solo.
I’m not sure what I thought of Fleetwood Mac back then. I probably ignored them because they weren’t hard-hitting enough. Plenty of my friends owned copies of Rumours, but that record never made its way into my collection until a few years later … when Tusk came out and I realized that music didn’t have to sock a person between the eyes to grab that attention and hold it close. After giving both Tusk and Rumours serious attention, it became pretty obvious that Lindsey Buckingham was not only a fabulous and versatile guitarist but also the mastermind behind the music. Those guitar licks and fills were everywhere!
I initially held onto Live at the Bass Performance Hall for several months after it arrived on March 25, 2008. The music was floating around in my head, knocking around those ideas of the past. I realized later that I had forgotten some of the minor hits: “Go Insane” is very powerful when turned into a slow dirge. “Never Going Back Again” and “Big Love” show off his finger-picking skill. Somehow, I’d also forgotten just how great a singer Lindsey Buckingham is.
But most of all, the import of “Go Your Own Way” had been on the shelf for more than (gulp) 30 years. Listening to it in the car later on, I recalled the whole “spring thing” and realized that it had been replaced by fall – and ultimately, winter. This time around, it’s not environmental qualities that push me away. No, now the onset of fall has begun to feel like the inevitable beginning of the end of another year. The fall foliage? The crisp air? Irrelevant. Not good.
Hey, Lindsey Buckingham can’t be faulted for my defective thought soup, and I tried my hardest to attach this music to some happier events, or to save the positive things from being lost into the noise. Ah, there’s that guitar solo again …
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