This Very Night

Hello all. Sorry for the long gap between posts. I could claim to be swamped with work or family issues or the usual stuff, and I am, but in real life I haven't left the house in nine months except to get groceries or see doctors and, very occasionally, to go to the actual office to do actual office things. So I have no excuse, really. Before I go off on the riff of the moment, though, I would like to say that the North Texas Food Bank is really hurting right now, trying to provide, as they are, for a lot of folks who have lost their jobs during the pandemic, not to mention the many, many folks who are going to lose unemployment benefits at the end of the month no matter what Congress does. One in 5 Texans is food insecure, meaning, not sure where his or her next meal is coming from, and a lot of those folks are children. So if you're doing any Christmas giving this year, please consider donating to NTFB. Okay, end of commercial. 

 Caution: This is a recap. If you've been hanging around these parts long enough, you know that my favorite band is Big Country. That's the Scottish band that had the one big hit in 1983, won the Best New Artist Grammy (or was at least nominated for it; I forget which) and then seemed to vanish like smoke (resurging briefly to record "The One I Love" in, I think, 1993, when I was frequently driving across the desert at night to see my new girlfriend and it always seemed to be on the radio). Only they didn't disappear, of course; they just fell victim to the vagaries of the Copyright Act of 1985 and some bad management decisions and never really made it back across the ocean again. But, they continued as a band in Europe and the rest of the world and put out eight brilliant albums over twelve years before their lead singer, Stuart Adamson, died tragically in Hawaii. 

 So Big Country was without a singer. In 2011, almost ten years after Stuart's death, Big Country's 30th anniversary came up and fans were demanding some kind of gathering to celebrate (this was in the U.K., though people I knew from the U.S. actually did fly over there to attend it). In order to have an actual band for the occasion, the surviving members of Big Country called up Mike Peters, the lead singer of the band The Alarm (biggest hit: Probably "Rain in the Summertime") and asked him to fill in. There's this funny story, which is probably totally bogus, that Mike was halfway up a mountain in Wales at the time and accepted the job on his cell phone while hanging from a carabiner. 

Anyway, the show went unbelievably well, everybody loved it and Big Country asked Mike to stay on full time. Which he did, and Big Country ended up recording The Journey, its first studio album since 1994, in 2013. The band did a tour of Europe and the United States, including three shows in Texas that I, Jen, went on the road to see (taking along a reluctant Joan, who doesn't do concerts). Yes, I followed a band around Texas. No, I'm not considering a future career as a Dead Head. It was actually really hard work. But the shows were brilliant, Mike Peters is awesome, and no matter what happens in the future or what else he ends up doing, I will always think of him as The Guy Who Brought Big Country Back From The Dead. Which, you gotta admit, is a pretty nifty epitaph if you need one.

After that, Mike Peters returned to The Alarm, which is fine, because they're my second-favorite band. And tonight, THIS VERY NIGHT, The Alarm is hosting a Christmas Gathering, to be simulcast all over the world at the same time (I'm not sure how they do this but I think it has to do with GPS satellites and a wad of duct tape). If you have never experienced The Alarm, they're like Bob Dylan meets The Clash with a little bit of Billy Idol. Definitely a lot of fun live, and you can get a ticket here. It's a virtual ticket. You can stream it on the device of your choice. 

 I should add, I normally play D&D on Saturday nights. So I've told my gang that a group of minstrels is going to show up and take over for a couple of hours while our characters get some much-needed rest in the shadow of the pyramid. The pyramid? Yeah, see, there's this pyramid, and we're exploring it, 

and--never mind. D&D never makes any sense unless you're actually there. 

So I hope you can make it, if you are interested. If not, cheers and carry on and I'll see you next post.