Better Than

Right before the last song tonight, the main singer of The Library Voices was thanking everyone, and particularly the sound guy, Slo' Tom. I was scanning the crowd, watching people, trying to figure out who was there for the band, and who was there for the post-band dancing.

In the middle of another laudatory sentence, the singer's voice disappeared.

When I turned around, he was bent over. Not the sound guy's fault. The singer had somehow managed to flip the cord out of the mic and drop both of them on the floor. There was a brief pause while we watched him scrabble around on the stage, finding and fitting bits together.

He stood up, yelled "It's okay!" and flung his arm triumphantly in the air, waving his fingers around. The band, all the rest of them, all 8 of them, they swung raucously into the next song.

It was better than okay.

If you missed The Library Voices tonight, you missed out. Their music is good, and fun, interesting and well done. Enough so that I bought the CD. But the joy. They loved playing. They were having an amazing time. They were loose and tight, in all the right spots.

"We got to see something special tonight," Jennifer said while we were gearing up for the walk home. "With that many people in the band, no way they'll make it for long. They'll hate each other before they tour again."

"You never know," I said. "It was the 32nd stop on this tour, and they were all hugging and smiling at each other."

"Well, it's gonna go either way, I guess."

Lucky for us it went our way.

Tip o' the hat to Matthew over at i (heart) music, who wrote about them back in October.