Turn the Page – Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden
August 14th, 2008 - by Eddie
Photo by Thomas Stuby
It’s our record release show. The theatre is packed. Friends, faithful fans, and a wash of new faces…the lights are down. We’re in the back, going over transitions and the final set list. There’s a moment – three seconds maybe – of heartfelt silence: four syncopated beats and thoughts. It’s been a year since those wintry nights at Bear Creek, recording these songs that only just now feel like our own. Just now, at this moment, before the lights come up.
On stage, the video crew sweeping in, the crowd has risen, pushing, pulling to be in the camera lens. It’s all for the making of our new video, “Everything Went Down” and it’s happening right now, as we play live before everyone. The crew gets one chance, just like us, to pull it off, to take their shots and capture the song.
When I sang on The Hours “Lost your shot at the stage this time” I thought to myself in the midst of it, “On no, not us, not this time.” I’m looking around, at all these dark figures standing just outside the blinding lights. I know what that place is like. But I’m not there tonight.
We form a clear spectacle, a bright box of light for the cameras and for all those eyes. My eyes begin to get lost in the darkness, moving around the room, from one figure to another, the crowd surging momentarily into my light, approaching nearness. I am thinking of words and worlds, the stories we tell and the songs that bear them up, the people who play the soundtracks for those living the stories.
I keep fixing my eyes upon a single figure up in the balcony, directly left of the main camera. It’s not the director, not of one the crew. I’ve already placed them. I feel funny for a moment, reminded of how that person, that mysterious figure standing stubborn in my central vision is watching me watching him or her or whomever…
Everyone is watching. So I dance. I look around. I think of how strange it is to be in this little box of light I call my world tonight. How lucky it is to have stories to sing and people who want to hear them. People in life who celebrate song.
It was a good show. I can’t wait to see the video.
-Kate Tucker
Record Release Show at Act Theatre
December 7, 2007
Kate Tucker & The Sons of Sweden – “The Hours”
[audio:http://www.52shows.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/01-the-hours-12.mp3]
August 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Beautifully written. Glad to see the addition of Turn the Page.