Should of Gone Home - Tribute Letter to the Tim Gearan Band

So, Monday night something happened that will never happen again. It was Tim Gearan’s last Monday night show at TOAD in Cambridge. Tim has been playing every Monday night for 15 years. In the music “business” that is unheard of. Someone would think that people would get tired of the same thing over and over again.

Tim Gearan is my favorite live musician. He inspired me to get into promoting and writing about, and most importantly experiencing, live music. Last night I was trying to tell a friend what made his music so special and tripped over a quote that explains the Monday night at TOAD experience best.

The quote was  this: “A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.” – W. H. Auden

What I like best about live music is that it is an immediate experience, it is fleeting and instantaneous and also ultimately unique, because it has never happened before. It reminds you of being alive, and that you are alive not for a controlled, concrete amount of time but for a long, silver trail of instances. And I’m sure you understand that when you remember that part of being human, it kind of gives you the chills, which also happens when you hear great music.

I do not remember the first time I went to TOAD on Monday. It was always there for me in college. I suppose I am a “trooper” and could stay out late and sleep 3 hours and then got to school or work. It was also nice to know that the other people who were at the show are also only the kind of people who would go out on a Monday night which I think says something about a person.

The followers, or participants, I suppose, of Monday nights come from all over the place, personality and background wise. There were other musicians, fearless college students, artists, local Cambridge folk, figure skaters, computer programmers, journalists, actors and me usually. As diverse as the make-up of the audience was, Monday nights were probably the greatest sense of community I have ever experienced. And I must thank Tim and his band for bringing us together.

Tim’s music is one of my favorite kinds, bold and gutsy soul-driven blues. It would make me cringe to hear him play because sometimes it just oozes with so much feeling I would feel like I would have to sit down and close my eyes. His voice is unique and perfected with a weather-worn rasp. The band on Mondays were composed of a horn section, trombone, trumpet and sax, all musicians whom I deeply, deeply admire and thank. Two percussionists, and a bass player. Sean Staples, a fellow UMass Boston alum played mandolin.

The other weird thing about Monday at TOAD was that a lot of the fans were UMass Boston alums, which hints at the idea that maybe that is how I started attending the show. They were also co-workers of mine when I worked at the Lizard Lounge, the sister venue to TOAD. It has always fascinated me when I see two groups of people from different realms of my life melt interact with each other in the same room.

TOAD is a small bar. Very small with a capacity of 62, I think. There is a long church pew lining the wall and a bar with windows and little toads opposite it. The bartender was a guy who I really liked as a bartender. I don’t like bartenders who don’t really think about your alcohol intake. This guy would give me this look. I don’t know if it is just the way his eyebrows went, but he looked like he was asking me silently if I really needed that second shot of Jameson.

I have so many memories of those evenings. They all kind of blend. There was this one time me and some of the band members decided to drive to New Hampshire and play board games all night. I went swimming in the morning, it was really pretty.

Like most people, if not all, I have an issue with large losses. It is hard to admit to myself that it something or someone is gone. It is abstract with this loss though. Because it is not a solid, tactile thing, nor was it ever. It was a string of instances, which would loop together meticulously on Monday nights, on a main street in a beautiful city which I call home. It’s never going to happen again. But I am so happy it did, and that I was there for it, and that I could participate in it and see amazing human beings creating magic on cold Boston nights and balmy summers.

Thank you, Tim and your whole amazing, amazing band. Thank you Jeff, Anna, Nicole, Steve, Greg, Karen, Paula, Elizabeth, Dave, Jeremy, Jamie, Jason, Allissa, Cody, and everyone else who made me be able to stand in one particular place on Earth, point down  and say,  “This is my  home. This is where I belong.”