Cloud Cult @ Slowdown

Last night I saw the best show of my life.

I've been listening to Cloud Cult for a couple of months now, thanks to my friend Dan, who recommended them. I really liked their stuff, especially their newest album, "Feel Good Ghosts." I was a little worried because my friend Israel saw them at SXSW, and wasn't much impressed. But I was still really excited to have the chance to go with a new friend from work and some of his buddies to their show at Slowdown last night.

At first it was a little weird, being at Slowdown with three strangers and one very new friend. I missed people. But by the time Cloud Cult came on, I'd relaxed a bit and was able to lose myself in the music. They were so good. Some bands are better recorded than live. Not so with Cloud Cult. They were beyond words. They had a cellist and violinist, keyboards and drums and guitar and bass. One band member painted a beautiful, original painting during the set which was auctioned off at the end. Their music was perfection: they were tight, their harmonies were dead on, the volume was perfect (although I did have considerable trouble hearing customers' orders this morning).

Part of my love for last night was that I connected so deeply with Cloud Cult's music. I resonate with their songs, but last night I felt like every song was written for or about me. I saw myself in almost every lyric. They played my current favorite, "Journey of the Featherless," but I also heard my story in all of their other songs, songs I've heard many times before but never really heard, you know? My experience with the music last night was so profound that I felt as though I both left my body and had never been more a part of it. The connection was so spiritual and emotional that it became physical. I danced. (I never dance.) I experienced both healing and brokenness. I walked away more whole and more fragmented than ever before. When it was over, I sat all alone on the floor of a bathroom stall, on the phone with a friend who knows, weeping silent, beautiful tears of connection.

Good and bad, pain and beauty, joy and sadness, are inextricably intertwined. That is a lesson I am learning every day lately; Cloud Cult took it from my mind and made it physical, then injected it into my bones and my heart and my soul.