Last week, Feller and I went down to Santa Cruz for a Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers concert. I’ve written a bit before about how much I love seeing my favorites in concert, and this was no exception. RCPM is up there in my top three favorite bands, and I haven’t had a chance to see them perform in years. Roger Clyne consistently gives great, energetic performances, and I always leave the show feeling revved up and revitalized. Feller has started coming with me when there are shows I want to see, and it’s fun to share the music I love with him.

I haven’t listened to RCPM on a regular basis for a few years; I didn’t love two of their recent albums and haven’t even listened to their newest, but this concert took me right back to being 22 on a beach in Mexico hearing them live for the first time. My buddy and I drove down to Rocky Point on a whim, after seeing Cross Canadian Ragweed in Tucson, who announced they were playing in Mexico the following week. We didn’t have a hotel or plan, and we discovered that this concert was a huge fucking event. We found the one room still available around the corner from the concert venue and got down to partying.

CCR was great; they always, always were, which is why I was so heartbroken when they broke up. But RCPM? Oh, god, they were MAGICAL. I knew some of their music because I worked in a sports bar that had The Refreshments on the jukebox, but even the stuff I didn’t know felt familiar and wonderful. I am pretty sure there weren’t any fireworks that night, but that feeling you get when you see fireworks is so strong in my memories that I have to remind myself he was only singing, “The kids are lighting firecrackers/Boom, boom, boom” and that it wasn’t actually happening.

After that night, I was hooked. I saw RCPM anytime they played in Tucson and as many times in Phoenix as I could. I saw them in Rocky Point another three times, always as part of a fun road trip with the same buddy. They were the soundtrack to my life in the first few years after I graduated college; when I didn’t know what was going on or where my life was headed, I turned to Roger who just seemed to GET ME. And the concert last week just took me right back there, reminding me of all the fun I had while listening to this band.