And We Bid You Goodnight: The Inevitable End of an Era Written in Turkey, Dressing, and Dinner Rolls

Thanksgiving; the warm-up for the “big game” known as the Christmas season. All of the elements came together the same as they would for the end-of-December festivities. Kids come home from the campuses. A family of five puts away a feast of turkey and fixings so mammoth in scale that the intake should be enough to tranquilize a wild lion. The youngsters are glued to the TV marveling at the sight of a giant Dora the Explorer inflatable dwarfing the Times Square melee, anxiously waiting in the cold New York rain for the arrival of Santa Claus and his jolly entourage. Mothers nationwide are cannibalizing sales ads page by page in preparation for the annual Black Friday shopping spree. Everywhere, the madness is spreading; it’s the mass American madness that feeds the retail business and promises low competitive pricing for the next year to come.

Don’t get the wrong idea; without fail, I dive headfirst into the holiday spirit. I will watch every bit of the Macy’s parade; every float, every marching band, every cheesy musical bit, I will not change the channel in fear that the Snoopy balloon will be long gone if I happen to stray. I still get the excitement from seeing Santa’s sleigh. Although I did notice, for those who didn’t, that Santa’s beard this year was short enough to mistake him for Kenny Rogers. While everyone else sang “Jingle Bells”, I was humming “The Gambler”.

As always with these writings, I happened to make an observation that, in some ways, was new to this holiday season kickoff. While all the excitement of turning our eyes and hearts towards the warmth of the season began, for some it marked the beginning of the end.

This Thanksgiving, I went out to Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox Theatre for the first night of a two-night run by Colorado-based jam masters, the String Cheese Incident. This was my second time seeing them live, and sadly it appeared to be my last. Following the band’s annual New Years Eve run, guitar player Bill Nershi is leaving the band and the remaining members have no formed plans to continue after his departure. For all intensive purposes, this Thanksgiving would be the String Cheese Incident’s last appearance in Atlanta. Of course, when the band took the stage, the crowd went nuts, and like always, the band obliged them with a night full of amazing musical adventure. The best way to describe a String Cheese Incident performance is to take the selection at your local Borders Books, throw it into an iPod, and play it on shuffle. Within the span of three hours of music, you heard rock, Latin, world beat, techno, country, bluegrass, funk, jazz, and blues. They even finished off the night with a nearly note-for-note rendition of Charlie Daniels’ classic, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. Throughout the show, the band was feeding off of each other so naturally in a way only bands that have played together for so long could do. Every member shared the spotlight instrumentally; you got the sense that there was no awkwardness between the band and the soon-to-be-departed Nershi yet they played with such conviction that one could see they were acknowledging that the end was near and there was much more music to be played.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I couldn’t but draw parallels in my mind to another grand farewell, the Band’s final performance, Thanksgiving of 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom, rightly known as The Last Waltz. With such a send-off, most of which consisted of The Band acting as rhythm section to a slew of big-name friends who came to pay their respects, such as Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, and Ronnie Hawkins to name a few, The Band’s legacy was sealed tightly. To this day, what they accomplished musically has become the groundwork and influence of the folk-country-rock melding known as Americana music, which is not bad to say for a band of mostly Canadians (fun fact – Levon Helm was from Arkansas). Years later, several “reunions” with some Band members would occur under the moniker of ‘The Band’. None of these, however, included guitarist and main songwriter Robbie Robertson; when approached about it, all it seems he could do was wonder what The Last Waltz really meant, if in fact it represented anything at all.

I wasn’t there for night number two of the String Cheese Incident, but I would imagine that the band didn’t let up. I wish them the best a fan can as they approach what appears to finally be the end of the road, and I hope they don’t make the same mistake that others have. Shall we look closer?

The majority of music fans grow up in either one of three camps, the Beatles fans, the Stones fans, or the Elvis fans. These houses are not necessarily divided but more so well marked off. From an early age (Thanks Dad), I knew little about Elvis, I thought the Beatles were overall overrated, and the Stones catalogue was either hit or miss. For me, it didn’t get louder and rowdier that The Who. Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle, and Moon; combined, they were synonymous with unfiltered aggression, maximum R&B. To this day, for my money, nobody has ever summed up teen angst in such a clear, single lyric: “Hope I die before I get old.”

With that line comes the bad news; the Who are old. I would love to sit here today and tell you like I usually do that I have given the band’s new album ‘Endless Wire’, their first in 23 years, a fair shot. The fact is that I have not. The angry young men of their heyday, at least those of which who are not dead, are now empowered, bitter old men. There is nothing they could say that hasn’t been said before. They’ve done more than one farewell tour and continue to remind that the new boss is the same as the old boss.

Then, of course, there is Phish, one my all-time favorite bands. I remember their indefinite hiatus looming in the fall of 2000; that summer they played a knockout two-night stint at Atlanta’s own HiFi Buys Amphitheatre, one of the greatest weekends I can remember. They were at the peak of their success, selling out tour after tour, putting on their very own summer festivals, and at the turn of the year had hosted the amazing New Years Eve spectacular on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in Florida, culminating in the climatic 7-hour-plus set from midnight to sunrise. With their return from the two-year hiatus on New Years Eve of 2002, Phish fans, myself included were beyond excited about our heroes’ triumphant return. Yet, as I heard reports from fans in attendance and listened to circulating recordings of the shows, it was easy to tell that there was something a little off about things. This band was known for almost unhealthy amounts of practice, allowing unspoken musical communication to lead into mind-blowing jams. Why all of sudden did it sound sloppy? What I thought would be a rejuvenating break for Phish turned into a death rattle; they weren’t practicing anymore, and the tight-knit grooves were audibly frayed. It wasn’t long until guitarist and band spokesperson Trey Anastasio announced via the website that following a small summer tour in 2004, the band was officially hanging it up. It was the emotional equivalent of getting dumped by your girlfriend, followed by getting back together after realizing you were both lonely, only to realize that things had changed and it was time to move on. I have to admit, I emotionally wrecked that summer, knowing that I would never hear that band I heard in 2000 ever again.

At some point, we all reach the end of our own little era. For some it is as grand in their life as the fall of an empire, others, just a ritual shedding of the temporary skin they happened to be wearing in title or deed. We have to recognize when these endings approach, and react in a way that doesn’t leave any questions unanswered. For Robbie Robertson on the night of the Last Waltz, all there was left to say was, “Goodnight. Goodbye.” Like any good book, you want to remember the past, yet you are excited to read on; why dwell on that chapter alone?

In my life, as I dwell on the Thanksgiving holiday, I am thankful for the many numerous things that I have had the privilege of experiencing. I have hope that I will continue to experience more. As such, I want to be The Band, sent off on my next leg of life in a way that rejoices in both my past triumphs and tragedies, readily looking head-on into the unknown. I don’t want to be the Who, stuck in a nostalgic, albeit moneymaking, purgatory that mainly relies on all the great things I said years ago to emphasize my importance in the present time. As for Phish, I am torn. Reunion rumors abound, and still the flame flickered before it dwindled. Part of me goes back to those recordings and remembers when, which then leads to the numerous “what if” questions. In a sense, if I were in their shoes and had any thought to reuniting, I would only want to return again to the places that I have been if they remained as vital to me today as they did then. If Phish can maintain their integrity and artistic vitality (let’s be honest, the last two studio albums sucked), let us draw the curtain open once more.
For me, that is the stage that I try to take every day. I awake and the curtains open, revealing no regrets, no hard feelings, no boundaries, and pure thankfulness for the time I get to share with everyone who passes along the way.