someday, someway

In 1985, I had tickets to see Marshall Crenshaw play at After Sundown in Blacksburg, Va.
I also had a curfew.
So I stayed through Let's Active and then turned into a pumpkin before Marshall and his band ever played the first notes of Cynical Girl, which at the time was my all-time favorite song, not to mention an important part of my I-am-so-done-with-high-school persona.
My friend, Jen, had a curfew, too.
But we don't have curfews anymore, which is how we ended up finally seeing Marshall Crenshaw on Sunday night.
The crowd was decidedly middle age. WE were decidedly middle age. Which meant our conversation went something like this:
"Has it really been... GOD. IT'S BEEN 22 YEARS. THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT?"
"It's right."
"But it. GOD!"

I was afraid the show was going to be like that, too. Me and Jen, MIDDLE AGE, watching Marshall play his old hits while we tried to figure out where the time had gone and whether we would ever consider wearing tube tops again.

But it wasn't. It was great.

Marshall Crenshaw did play some of his old hits, but with new arrangements, sometimes jazzy, sometimes bluesy, all on a hollow-body guitar like Maybelle Carter used to play. He was good. Wry. Funny. His voice sounded like he'd been doing shows like this a lot lately: just himself and a guitar and two hours of singing. But he was still in fine form, his guitar chops were excellent, and his choice of covers (A Merle Haggard tune, The Who's Whiskey Man and Woman on Death Row by the late, great Lee Hazelwood) shows that he has more than just a good pop music sensibility. He has a good sense of music history. He's a fan as well as a musician. And his new stuff (think mortality but with a beat you can dance to) is still hitting me where I live.