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 Putty for the Hole in a Soul

9/28/01

Sound men were placing instruments and speakers all around, playing each one to make sure they were tuned. John, Jason and David took their places on stage and fingered their instruments, privately joking and it felt like our own private living room jam session...

I asked if I could take pictures, and John said that would be all right. Since this was the anniversary of my fiasco and stupid human tricks at the Ames concert a year ago, I was not planning an encore tonight and was coming to the show empty handed - but not empty headed.

John started warming up with "Loretta" - the song he does on the Townes Van Zandt tribute Album "Poet". It was beautiful, and there was something new in his voice, younger maybe? Back to the pre-cancer octaves, it was a large charge to my adrenalin factor. 

He sang 2 other songs that I was unfamiliar with, one was an old gospel tune that Iris DeMent was quietly singing along with and the other just floated beautifully through the empty auditorium and stopped abruptly. Iris asked if he was going to sing it tonight and he said he hadn't finished it yet, it needed another verse.

If I had planned this, I would have paid more attention to the words, the melody was beautiful and for a while it made me forget about all the uncertainty of this life.