"If you're feelin' what I'm feelin', c'mon,
All you soul-searchin' people, c'mon..." - Delta Spirit
The hour struck somewhere during the rowdy Delta Spirit set, maracas slamming on to the heads of giant drums, Matt Vasquez leading the packed 9:30 Club in an egoless, self-unaware dance party. Emotions untethered, of both the band on the stage and us in the rolling, breaking crowd, limbs flailing along just minutes after he calmed us with a gospel spiritual, with an a cappella rendition of Ray Charles, after he brought many to tears with the song he wrote and dedicated to his grandparents- the lyrics tracing his grandfather's complaints of heaven's loneliness as he waits for his love to join him there. It was the hour of another midnight, another waning Saturday becoming a Sunday, but one of uncommon significance. That of July 3rd becoming July 4th, and the liveliest people in Washington D.C. recognizing the precise beauty of both that setting and that moment.
I arrived anxious to hear "Bushwick Blues," a song off their new album that couldn't describe me better if the lyrics contained my last name. After opening with that, Delta Spirit launched in to not merely the greatest concert of my life, but one of the greatest handful of hours. Hours with an awareness of context rather than self. Brilliant music heightened in that it poured forth from a guitar covered in scrawled black pen static that read "ZINN.... The people," in homage to the historian's A People's History of the United States. Bantering before the set closer, the ubiquitous "Play Freebird!" was screamed from the crowd, and they actually played "Freebird".... in doing so professing the fulfillment of their seventh grade-rockstar dreams in front of the largest band they had ever performed for, and on their favorite holiday. Matt Vasquez spoke of wanting to move a crowd like Louis Armstrong, and with the last song of the night he managed it, descending into the epicenter of the audience floor, calming all of our sweating bodies and beaming faces into silence and getting us to crouch low to the ground before leading us in the "Little bit louder now" bridge and ensuing chorus of "Shout!" as crepe paper streamers danced down from the rafters, our clutching hands reaching up to their dance through the vibrating air. A concert far more about this nation's incredible history and talents that we all embrace, than simply a rock-soul band from San Diego.
Seconds before, he had implored us: "If music has ever meant anything to you in your life, prove it, right now." We did. Substitute the word "music" with "America" and we accomplished that as well. With one phrase, Delta Spirit summarized what I've found myself striving to do nearly every moment of the past few months of my life. Because when you prove yourself out of internal desire and love of an ideal, rather than as a demand from others, it means inexpressibly more.
Midnight struck again the following night as Joanna and I stood on her roof, looking out over Washington D.C. and Virginia, with fireworks displays, at least 20, simultaneously erupting in all directions in the night above us. A few hours before we were on a balcony of the Capitol, watching fireworks ignite the air above the National Mall. Twelve hours later, we would be with more friends lazily floating down the Potomac River, the forests of West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland inching by our sunburned shoulders.
July 4th in D.C. After the exile comes the embrace. Comes the recognition of what home is. And the privilege of proving what it means to me.
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