one fifth, blotto

Vivid. The word that came to mind when I asked my partner in crime what he thought of the guitarist and band as a whole that I introduced him to last Saturday. Blending a mind boggling assortment of styles and genres, Mark Hague began to shed a whole new light upon mine and my concert going accomplices’ guitar playing ideologies. Unorthodox keys and phrasing are somehow able to mesh with one another and create something orgasmic to the ear. The A to Z list of influence drapes obviously over the fret board of Hague’s Paul Reed Smith Twentyfour Custom like that of an oversized doily brandishing several cigarette burns, one looking like it almost got out of control, that your grandmother probably used to shroud her night stand. His fingers grace the strings effortlessly, but with sheer determination to arrive at their appropriate destination along the neck, all the while working together forming a pleasing or consistent whole, harmoniously.

Pitch and intonation are two, among many, of the qualities that boast all the required or desirable elements of perfection. His five o’clock shadow from last week proves his dedication to the holy matrimony between man and his workhorse, and the obligation to bestow the ever ringing sound of waves and vibrations penetrating its listeners ear drums bellowing from the quad of magnets, each twelve inch in diameter. Our ears bleed tears of jubilation as a plethora of peace and well wishes travel through them at the speed of sound. I think that I should practice more, that I should leave the concert at once to return home and exhaust my chops and provoke blood to flow from my finger tips on my fretting hand. In due time, my time is due.

I busily abolish the thought of leaving at such an inopportune time and bring my focus back to the most important gem of the evening. Every beer I try to put down becomes warm towards the last couple ounces because my mind is attentively affixed to the stage. Hague nods a few bars ere ending an ego threatening solo to allow the rest of the band ample time to prepare to execute the outré outro with haste, an execution that surely invokes tears to glaze over my eyes as if I were about to win the aural lottery with a Power Ball jackpot consisting of all the ecstasy contained within the witness of a first born child’s birth. A simple mess of chords, strings, amps, and other musical wares of indeterminate kind bind together and achieve their goal of the evening. Making people happy.