As for Levon, you wouldn’t think he’d be up for singing when you hear his raspy, cancer-scarred voice giving instructions to the band. But he must save it all for the songs. He sang lead on a few and chimed in with that tenor on many more, with the throaty rasp adding a plaintive urgency to his voice, which at times sounded as good as ever.
His drumming is great in a way only a musician who has tried to lay down a meat-and-potatoes groove with a drummer who couldn’t resist crowding every spare beat with Neil Peart-inspired histrionics can really comprehend. It’s minimalist. It serves the song. It’s appreciated by those who speak of music in zen-like terms. “Listen to the notes he’s not playing, man.”
Maybe it’s because I was surrounded by true-believers, but after talking to so many fans and musicians, and hearing the same thing, I came to believe the feeling these people had for Levon and this music transcended respect; that they felt like seeing these shows got them closer to the mystical root of it all.
“It’s real — it’s thehigh pointof what we’re trying to do,” said James Maddock, a British singer/songwriter who opened the April 2 show. “It’s the epitome of what we’re trying to attain as songwriters, to get that feeling on record. I mean anybody can sing and play the guitar and play the drums but to get that feeling over, is magical. It’s a magical, unbelievably hard thing to express.”
So while artists like Maddock aspire, and hardcore fans make the weekly pilgrimage to Plochmann Lane, and local newspaper reporters try to make sense of it, there’s Levon up on the stage, doing it. It’s written on his face. He smiles whenever a bandmate completes a solo. He smiles when the music really swings. People in the crowd look at one another and smile when he smiles.
“That was a beautiful thing,” said one man, as we made our way out just aftermidnight.
“Oh my god, how big was his smile on stage?” asked another.
“It would have lit up a Christmas tree.”
Will Dendis
For tickets and more information, see levonhelm.com.
