Reflections on The Bridge

Tonight a crew of my best friends, my wife, and my Dad will celebrate the music and community of The Bridge at their farewell show. It’s painful to see such an amazingly talented and driven band hang it up because they couldn’t earn a decent (and deserved) living for their families. As a musician that has always held a dayjob to pay the bills, I have the utmost respect for them giving it their all and sustaining for as long as they have. In the spirit of celebrating the good times instead of lamenting the loss, here are some of my favorite Bridge moments:

2/2/2008 – State Theater in Falls Church, VA – This was the show we bought the painting I used for “Within and Around”. I was really big into RAQ and was thrilled to catch Cris and Kenny guesting on the Allman Brother’s “whipping post”(on archive here) – wow! I was familiar with the Bridge from the music scene, but they absolutely rocked that night and won me over as a fan.

AllGood Music Festival – July 2008 – seeing Mike Gordon of Phish guest with the Bridge on a late night set.  That was plain epic!  We popped in their free-giveaway CD on the ride home and “Brother Don’t” hit me right in the gut and instantly became a personal favorite.

4/16/2010 – My buddy Greg and I had the pleasure of opening for the Bridge at PJ Kelly’s in West VA. It was a rare road-gig for me so everything had that fun surreal vibe of an utterly foreign experience. Honestly, I was a bit starstruck and shy around the members of The Bridge as we were loading in and preparing for the gig. We had some pleasant hanging, though, and everyone was really nice and chill. Once it was time for us to hit the stage the rest of the night flew by too fast. After our set, Kenny told me he enjoyed my song “Drop these Blues” – that was really special. They tore it up and had the room rocking. I’ll remember that night fondly.

7/10/2011 – My entire family packed up an amazing picnic and met up with friends for their show at Ladew Gardens. This was my daughter Emma’s first concert – a beautiful experience. The band was playing acoustic which complimented the chill gorgeous day and venue. A record crowd was in attendance and, as at every Baltimore-area Bridge show, there were plenty of delightful run-ins with other friends and musicians.

Funny enough, one of my favorite Bridge memories is a show I missed. I think it was March of 2009. I was living in College Park at the time and The Bridge were playing a weekly residency at the Santa Fe Café. I made plans to go see them after work but when I got back to our apartment, Lauren told me that she thought she might be pregnant. So, we decided to go out to dinner to chat and celebrate the possibility. We swung by a CVS on the way home, took the test that night, and sure enough, started planning and looking forward to our little family. I’m not sorry I missed that one, guys – hah!

Thanks for all the great times!