Freakin and Peakin

Last nights show was a stunner, it's hard to imagine how they keep topping themselves. But, as we know.. tonight the train pulls out of the station for it's final run.

I posted a synopsis of last nights show to the email list and had thought to write something more refined for this- I just can't seem to get the words out.

Is it because music touches us in ways that transcends the words themselves, that we mourn this as a loss? Of course, the band will live on in recorded form and we'll have archives of live performances to relive parts of the magic, yet, the proverbial rip of tape from wound is kinetic. The shifts and changes, the meandering of Locomotive Luna will be a finite set, as it was always intended- it's wonderful to be so myopically transfixed by the journey that the destination seems as mythical as the Emerald City. Tonight we will be glancing past the forlorn water towers and following Luna as they cue the final scene, loping past the city they created from green, green bottles. After all, they don't last forever.

I tried to speak intelligibly about Luna to Matt, for the documentary; alas, extemporaneous speaking can not accurately represent words routed deep in the heart. I tossed a few topical blips (while remarking internally how similar the camera was to an oncoming train) that hardly skirted my truest thoughts.

Why does Luna mean so much to me, more than any other? Why I have invested so much time and money to following their products and pursuits? The best I can surmise is that Luna, through Dean's lyricism and their collective musicianship, is a band as in love with beauty as charmed by the bittersweet. Nothing is more New York than this intersection. Equal parts wit and purpose with a nod to the sublime, Luna shepherded its followers through a city (and by extension, a world) that "makes it so you can't shake hands, when it (they) make your hands shake", all the while pointing out the simple pleasures, absurdities and nuances that make it all worth it.

Is it that simple? Group together four musicians, each talented and accomplished and make sure one of them has a golden wit and enchanting eyes? Of course not, it comes down to chemistry and physics in ways I am too far removed from the liberal sciences to explain. After that, of course, you need an audience with as impeccable taste as ourselves so to provide market demand.

They got it right, and most importantly- they got it right for me at a time when I was ready to be swept away. God bless grunge for sucking so royally.