I’m not sure what year it was, but everybody was young. The crowd was… well, let’s say the crowd was just one person. Me. I was front and center with a bag of popcorn, close enough to the footlights to feel the heat. The concert that changed my life was about to begin and all I knew was that I wanted to hear some music. House lights down, the curtain parted, somewhere in the building an idiot complained about the wrong-sized bread.

The opening acts were a classic rock revue- not the shit that classic rock stations play now. Van Halen is not classic rock; Eddie learned his moves from these guys. Steppenwolf, The Who, and The Guess Who played back-to-back short sets, reminding all that you can still rock without auto-tune or makeup. I was in high school, but these guys wrote these songs decades earlier. Once the drums had exploded, the roadies dragged them offstage and brought out the evening’s first headlining act.

Like a curveball nailing a batter smack in the ear, the concert shifted to Contemporary Christian music. I shit you not, Jars of Clay started off with that one song that got played everywhere. At this point I was in college and the popcorn was already half empty. Dan said thank you and made his exit, just as the man himself walked on with a guitar. He was three feet tall and smiling like some kind of weird celtic punk-folk pixie. The rest of the band took their places and Caedmon’s Call started their set.

They didn’t just play a few songs, they performed a strange drama right in front of me. The beginning of the set did something Christian music’s not supposed to do: it made me think. And it made me dance (I must have looked weird, all alone in that front row). The band realized their mistake, I guess, and started playing the typical praise-and-worship crap. Only the diminutive one seemed as disappointed as I by the change in mood. By the end of their set, the house was silent and unmoving. The band quietly disassembled their gear and walked off stage right, but Derek Webb exited alone, stage left. He’d be back later.

For a long time there was nothing. It was as though the stage manager realized they’d booked the wrong lineup and was scrambling to put together another show right then and there. When finally the stage lights went up again there was a tall skinny guy like me standing at the mic. Train played three whole albums worth of material while I watched. I didn’t mind, I was out of college and hated my job; I had nothing better to do. With Pat’s voice still ringing out in the theater, they performed a no-huddle play and switched to Jason Mraz. I got out a notepad so I could keep on top of the linguistic swordplay.
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So seeing the Dresden Dolls last night made me a little uncomfortable. I admit it. I’m no better than Pat Monahan… I get very jealous when I see others doing the things I wish I could do. I’ve been dreaming of playing sold-out shows at big theaters since I was 12.

Why should I get jealous when I see a good show? I know those two have worked their asses off to get to the stage they’re at, nobody just handed them enough fans to fill the Wilbur Theater. They earned them. Still, here I am: Working my ass off trying to put on the best show I possibly can. I can’t afford to hire the kind of crew that Train or Amanda Palmer have working with them, I’m doing most of this myself. And yet I haven’t quite reached that goal of playing the big rooms with my name on the marquee.

The Dresden Dolls show reminded me of what I don’t have.

Does this make me a bad person? I don’t think so. It makes me a person. One of my heroes summed it up best in August:

The guy I really let get to me was John Mayer. Man, I wanted what that guy was achieving and now that I’ve had a chance to hang with him and see how great he is at what he does, I truly only want great things for him because he really is a crazy talented musician and an ultra smart dude. Yea, there may be one or two others that I still need to love instead of envy but I’m trying AND learning. Happy to be where I am right now. That other place is way lonelier.
- Pat Monahan

I will get there someday. I don’t know how the hell I’ll do it, but I’m going to succeed or burn out trying. The only way it’s going to happen, though, is if I stop coveting the success of others and just enjoy the shows they produce. Turning envy into inspiration is not easy, but it’s the only way to keep it from eating you alive.

Every music site I sign up for has the same Influences field. To say that an artist influenced me is rather trivial… I may not like 50 Cent, but his work has influenced me (in the “dear God don’t ever let me sound like that” kind of way).

There are a certain number of acts, however, that throughout my development have made me want to play better, write better, entertain better, and be better. They are the ones that made me ask, “why can’t I do that?” And then I asked, “what can I do to be like that?” It’s the line between influence and inspiration, and there’s 7 on my list that cross that line.
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