"When you wish upon a COUNTERFEIT star..."

As a child of two musicians, a child who used to nap on the inside of her mother’s bass drum, I have attended many, many concerts in a variety of venues and locations in my lifetime. I listen and love almost all types of music. And truly, for me there would be no writing without music.

On May 8th, me and a wicked cool friend hopped into my car, Indigo Montoya, and took a drive up to Nashville, TN on a mission to find a small club called The End. We’d heard nightmares about this club: bad sound, tetanus shot required, etc… but I am a concert champ, and this particular band that we’d loaded up to see meant way more to me than a bunch of rumors of an iffy venue.  So, onward we traversed.

Thanks to the aforementioned brilliant friend we scored VIP tickets, which meant I was finally going to get the chance to meet the guys in the band known as Counterfeit and thank them not only for their rocking tunage but also for inadvertently creating a cd that helped me overcome the closest thing to writer’s block I’ve ever experienced.

This would be an easy thing for me. I know plenty of musicians, and more importantly, I am the daughter of the Rock Goddess. It never occurred to me that me, a girl with more words running around in her brain than can ever come out, might freeze during that one moment I had to tell them thank you. No, not me...I am the epitome of chill.

Somehow among the excitement of the upcoming show and the debating of which songs the band might shred out for us...I forgot one tiny little detail. One of the members of this band, and I am intentionally going to downplay this, is an actor by the name of Jamie Campbell Bower. If you have seen any of his work, particularly his recent intense portrayal of Christopher Marlowe on the show Will, then you probably already suspect what happened to me and my super calm self. I bring this little fact up so that you all can have a good laugh at my expense.

After all, Counterfeit is so much more than Jamie Campbell Bower. Together, these five men are an extraordinary force of sound, pounding an exquisite mix of punk, heavy rock, metal and a zillion others sounds they’ve absorbed, mastered, and perfected into a blend of something amazing into our ears.

But I digress… There I was in line for the meet and greet totally prepared to lay it all out, to let each of them know in two or three swift comments that their music has been important in my life, to say thank you.  Spoiler alert: this mission of mine failed. It failed in epic proportions.

First, I met Bass Guitarist, Roland Johnson and Guitarist, Tristan Marmont. This went okay. The plan, of course, was to say hello to all of them and then give them my group message.  HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Side note to all of you who greatly love the world of creativity and art. If you admire a poet, a musician, actor, or any other sort of creative being, there is a good chance you might actually forget what you planned on saying. You might...in some cases...say something less than intelligent.

Next in line came Jamie Campbell Bower… brace yourselves friends and readers. I know you are expected me to say something cool and snarky here… I am rather known for my smart ass quips. Unfortunately, it went something like this. “Hi, I’m Jamie.” There was a handshake. I started to recall a scene he performed once with Eva Green way back in the Camelot days…and I mumbled and muttered the only thing that came to my mind… "Yes, yes, you are."

Luckily, they are all five gracious men. Guitarist, Sam Bower, and Drummer, Jimmy Craig also introduced themselves to me. I have no idea what I said to them. I pray it was in English. When I lose concentration, I start babbling in other languages. There were a couple of pictures taken while I awaited angels to nab me right there on the spot because my writer’s imagination had me suspended into some sort of reality warp, and my one chance to tell all of them what I really wanted to say melted away beneath the hot Nashville sun.  (Also, no actual angels appeared despite my best imaginings.)

Later on, before the show, there was another unfortunate incident where a pothole attacked me and won. Over a week later, and I still bare those bruises. If anyone has advice on how to walk on flat ground and win in a fight against pavement, please leave a comment below.

So, maybe this wasn’t the night for me to win any awards for being graceful and poised. HOWEVER, it was a night to rock hard and have a stellar time. Counterfeit is no joke. They bring everything they have and lay it out raw for everyone to experience. As a band, they are a tightly gelled unit, and this comes across in their performance.

As I said earlier, I go to many, many concerts, but it has been a long time since I’ve walked out of a venue with that unique and rare feeling of energetic almost spiritual happiness that a really great show with amazing music and the right audience can, every once in awhile, induce.

Counterfeit did this. No, they came out on that tiny stage, in a venue that has a bit of an unfair rep, and slew everyone in the room with their instruments and voices.

If you don’t know this band, check them out. Their album, Together We Are Stronger, is out everywhere.  And if they come to your town, go experience their show.

A few of the things I should  have told Counterfeit:

1. Your record is a hellacious driving album. Put it on, crank it up loud, and drive...fast.
2. Your songs, “Lost Everything” and “You Can’t Rely”, helped resuscitate my character, Zylphia, effectively allowing me to get back to what I love doing, writing. (For those of you who are concerned, Zylphia’s story is flowing nicely now. I just pop on Together We Are Stronger and the words flow. The book title shall be revealed soon.)
3. Thank you. Thank you for doing what you love and sharing it with everyone else.

As this is a rather long blog for me, I’ll cut it off here with a question. Has anyone else ever had a moment where you completely farkled for whatever reason?

Angels at the Alter

Gas, Burton, Ville, Mige, Linde
HIM

On Sunday, September 22nd, several friends and I loaded up in my car to drive south to a HIM concert many hours away in Atlanta, Georgia.  So great is our love for the band HIM that this is not our first long distance trek to catch just a glimpse of the magic that is their music.  And, in fact, all of the fans that we have met while waiting in line or perhaps enjoying the show, have all traveled long distances to witness this band's mesmerizing stage presence.  The pull of their euphonious music can only be equated, and I am not exaggerating here, with the power of the moon that governs the ocean tides.

The band HIM hails from Finland, and their music, which is sometimes called "love metal", is a homogeneous mixture of divine melancholia and hope-filled doom.  I was first introduced to HIM many, many years ago while in high school when a few of their early songs were added onto a friend's mixed c.d.  I devoured those three songs and rabidly went in search for more.  Now, their music is the soundtrack of my life, and each new album only adds depth to my love for them.

A HIM concert is a quintessential experience that delved deep into the shadowed areas of souls, luring the crowd into a mass ecstatic frenzy of pure devotion. Throngs of "devotees hand on to, and sign every note, their bodies pulsing to the rhythm, writhing with the need for more.

What does this have to do with Southern traditions and the typical feel of my blog? EVERYTHING.  For, there, at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, a venue that was once a prominent downtown Southern Baptist church, countless fans gathered for a metal show.  Unseen forces and an unheard mystical call lead HIM fans all to a place once used for worship (of a different, more traditional southern-friendly kind) so that they could show reverence for this mighty band which brings them to their knees.

Heartagram symbols were displayed freely on jewelry, t-shirts, jackets and tattoos, and no one was overheard asking what the symbol meant. The Heartagram encompasses a vast variety of meanings, but to the concert-goers of a HIM show, it's the easiest way to show love and support of a band that has been bleeding poetry to them for twenty years.  It represents the circle of life, dark and light, love and hate, life and death... People stood outside in the hot sun, lined up and down and around the sidewalks of Luckie Street for hours in peaceful, polite company.  And when at last the show began, and this Finnish band of all bands took to their throne, the audience did the only thing they could do.  They released out exalted, passionate cries to the band they love, and fell into the hypnotic rapture that can only be inspired by HIM.