Please play Porch at the Concert to End Gun Violence
I never saw myself creating a thread like this, but I don't know how I can't today.
On April 16, 2007, I lost my best friend, Ryan "Stack" Clark, to a gun. He woke up in his dorm room at Virginia Tech, heard a noise, opened the door and was shot in the hallway.
I had graduated a few years earlier, but when he and I had been in school together, and when I visited afterwards, Porch was our football song. It had to be the last thing we heard before heading into the game. I always called it a ball of energy. Sometimes you hold it and sometimes you let it go.
I know the last record I listened to that morning was Neil Young's Harvest. I had just turned 24 and I was beginning to feel like the Old Man. The next day I listened to Temple of the Dog once. I used parts of "Say Hello To Heaven" at his memorial service at his old high school the following week. He had often told me that he wanted to show me around Augusta, GA.
I couldn't bring myself to listen to music for a long time.
We had tickets to see Crowded House in Philadelphia a few months later. Liam Finn was an unannounced opener (well before he was the opening act for Ed), and played with them later. His was the first music I had heard since the memorial and funeral in Georgia. Afterwards, I held my girlfriend (now wife) and bawled while just telling her the lyrics to Porch.
Porch, the song that will be with me forever. It has been and will always stick around me. When I couldn't have him be in my wedding, I played Porch for him, and scared the rest of my groomsmen. When my son was born, and I couldn't be in the delivery room due to complications, I listened to Porch. When they brought him to me after checking him and my wife out, Porch was playing. We gave him the middle name is Stack.
Porch is a great song, my little ball of energy. But in the last 9+ years it means so much more to me. It is death and new life.
If I don't hear it that night, I'll be fine. It means to world to me to know that there are still people who even care about reducing gun violence today, as it seems that national conversation
always forgets.
If anyone reads this, thanks. It sometimes feels like a lot to keep inside.
"Hear my name
Take a good look
This could be the day
Hold my hand
Walk beside me
I just need to say
I could not take
Just one day
I know and I would not ever
Touch you
Hold you
Feel you
In my arms
Ever again"
On April 16, 2007, I lost my best friend, Ryan "Stack" Clark, to a gun. He woke up in his dorm room at Virginia Tech, heard a noise, opened the door and was shot in the hallway.
I had graduated a few years earlier, but when he and I had been in school together, and when I visited afterwards, Porch was our football song. It had to be the last thing we heard before heading into the game. I always called it a ball of energy. Sometimes you hold it and sometimes you let it go.
I know the last record I listened to that morning was Neil Young's Harvest. I had just turned 24 and I was beginning to feel like the Old Man. The next day I listened to Temple of the Dog once. I used parts of "Say Hello To Heaven" at his memorial service at his old high school the following week. He had often told me that he wanted to show me around Augusta, GA.
I couldn't bring myself to listen to music for a long time.
We had tickets to see Crowded House in Philadelphia a few months later. Liam Finn was an unannounced opener (well before he was the opening act for Ed), and played with them later. His was the first music I had heard since the memorial and funeral in Georgia. Afterwards, I held my girlfriend (now wife) and bawled while just telling her the lyrics to Porch.
Porch, the song that will be with me forever. It has been and will always stick around me. When I couldn't have him be in my wedding, I played Porch for him, and scared the rest of my groomsmen. When my son was born, and I couldn't be in the delivery room due to complications, I listened to Porch. When they brought him to me after checking him and my wife out, Porch was playing. We gave him the middle name is Stack.
Porch is a great song, my little ball of energy. But in the last 9+ years it means so much more to me. It is death and new life.
If I don't hear it that night, I'll be fine. It means to world to me to know that there are still people who even care about reducing gun violence today, as it seems that national conversation
always forgets.
If anyone reads this, thanks. It sometimes feels like a lot to keep inside.
"Hear my name
Take a good look
This could be the day
Hold my hand
Walk beside me
I just need to say
I could not take
Just one day
I know and I would not ever
Touch you
Hold you
Feel you
In my arms
Ever again"
0
Comments
www.cluthelee.com
www.cluthe.com
8/17/98 Noblesville, 8/18/00 Noblesville, 6/5/03 San Diego, 6/22/03 Noblesville, 9/11/05 Kitchener, 5/7/10 Noblesville, 9/15/11 Hamilton, 11/21/12 Memphis (Ed w/ Glen), 7/19/13 Wrigley, 10/11/13 Pittsburgh, 10/01/14 Cincinnati, 10/03/14 Saint Louis, 4/16/16 Greenville, 4/26/16 Lexington, 5/1/16 NYC, 5/2/16 NYC, 8/20/16 Wrigley, 8/22/16 Wrigley (For Hank), 8/18/18 Wrigley, 8/20/18 Wrigley (For Hank), 9/18/22 Saint Louis, 9/5/23 Chicago, 9/7/23 Chicago
Latest story - Declan at Slipknot is up on the website now at www.giventolive.com along with Kayleigh at Foo Fighters, Tony at Stereophonics and more.
Inspired by Pearl Jam, making live music dreams come true.