Revisiting Unplugged
Corey Lynn
Posts: 681
I watched Unplugged for the first time in years today. It was exactly how I remembered it back then…but, time has changed me, which became obvious now.
I had memorized every movement, every song (it was where I learned many of the lyrics that were unclear on the alum), I knew the arrangements of Unplugged just as well as from the album and I embraced them as much if not more. We did not have all of the boots back then (there weren’t many yet anyway), we did not have the internet and tickets were much harder to attain back them. Unplugged was the first look at the band up close for me and I now realize how much it impacted my life.
The familiarity of Stones hands on the guitar during the opening notes of Alive made me feel like I was visiting my past. Ed was shy, and angry which was so evident in the way that he white knuckle gripped the microphone like he was trying to stay grounded as the world worked to rip him away. He said “Do I deserve to be?” and truly looked like he still wasn’t sure. He continuously glares at the ceiling like he is begging for answers. The band looks at him in awe and look slightly afraid of him. and they look humbled. He rocks back and forth and shakes his head with so much disgust that it was hard to imagine at the time where such anger came from.
I was young, and naive and did not have enough time yet to understand where such raw emotion derived from…I do now. It comes from living, and from hurt and from injustice. He looks like he has a hard time accepting applause for throwing his heart right out there on the stage…for showing pain so openly.
Back then, I embraced them as I do now, but differently. I was slightly envious of torture then and yearned for life experience. I wanted to know how much pain it would take to grip the mic so tightly and did not understand why life had destroyed or changed so many of my hero’s. .and my parents and all of those I looked up to. I wanted to be there in the audience when the opening cords of Even Flow filled the room.
I have now been there. I know now what it is like to live. It is terrible and wonderful.
I recently read an interview where Ed said something along the lines of : it is hard to trust any art that is not derived from torture and pain to some extent. I understand this. I close in around myself and invite pain in order to be creative. It takes a strong person to be able to come back. After all of these years I am so thankful that Ed made it back. That he was able to find balance. Because, in revisiting Unplugged today, I realized how easy it would have been for him to go to that place and self destruct.
“It’s an art to live with pain. Mix the light into gray.”
I had memorized every movement, every song (it was where I learned many of the lyrics that were unclear on the alum), I knew the arrangements of Unplugged just as well as from the album and I embraced them as much if not more. We did not have all of the boots back then (there weren’t many yet anyway), we did not have the internet and tickets were much harder to attain back them. Unplugged was the first look at the band up close for me and I now realize how much it impacted my life.
The familiarity of Stones hands on the guitar during the opening notes of Alive made me feel like I was visiting my past. Ed was shy, and angry which was so evident in the way that he white knuckle gripped the microphone like he was trying to stay grounded as the world worked to rip him away. He said “Do I deserve to be?” and truly looked like he still wasn’t sure. He continuously glares at the ceiling like he is begging for answers. The band looks at him in awe and look slightly afraid of him. and they look humbled. He rocks back and forth and shakes his head with so much disgust that it was hard to imagine at the time where such anger came from.
I was young, and naive and did not have enough time yet to understand where such raw emotion derived from…I do now. It comes from living, and from hurt and from injustice. He looks like he has a hard time accepting applause for throwing his heart right out there on the stage…for showing pain so openly.
Back then, I embraced them as I do now, but differently. I was slightly envious of torture then and yearned for life experience. I wanted to know how much pain it would take to grip the mic so tightly and did not understand why life had destroyed or changed so many of my hero’s. .and my parents and all of those I looked up to. I wanted to be there in the audience when the opening cords of Even Flow filled the room.
I have now been there. I know now what it is like to live. It is terrible and wonderful.
I recently read an interview where Ed said something along the lines of : it is hard to trust any art that is not derived from torture and pain to some extent. I understand this. I close in around myself and invite pain in order to be creative. It takes a strong person to be able to come back. After all of these years I am so thankful that Ed made it back. That he was able to find balance. Because, in revisiting Unplugged today, I realized how easy it would have been for him to go to that place and self destruct.
“It’s an art to live with pain. Mix the light into gray.”
If I knew where it was I would take you there. There's much more than this
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