Back Home Again: The Power of Live Music

by Aprille Hanson-Spivey

Photo: Aprille Hanson-Spivey

Walking into the Rev Room in Little Rock, Ark., on June 25 was a bit like coming home. When my husband Julian and I saw Jason Boland and the Stragglers perform there in February of 2020, we had no idea that would be our last concert for the next year and four months. For us, live music is a passion. There’s a different energy when you connect on almost a spiritual level with the performer onstage, rocking out to their music in real time. We stay charged up by attending a lot of concerts throughout the year.

So, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were in desperate need of a recharge.

The venue looked the same, a black room with concrete floors, just a few steps leading up to another level with a bar in the back. But Mecca is the stage and seeing the instruments set up with the giant red “Rev Room” sign hanging in the back, I couldn’t help but think, “Hello old friend.”

It’s a miracle it survived the pandemic. So many small music venues throughout the country weren’t so lucky. 

It’s a miracle we all survived. It’s what made this concert so different than all the others. There was this excitement, a newness and a gratefulness that was unspoken, but felt so deeply. When opener Gabe Lee took the stage, I immediately teared up. This happened several times. I was grateful to God for the scientists, for healthcare workers, for the vaccine, for my life and for reawakening that piece of my soul that had been silenced since the pandemic started. I leaned over and told my husband, “We’re back” because it was a chance for us to finally breathe, in a crowd, at a concert, without the fear of death looming.

When headliner American Aquarium hit the stage, I was ready to just rock it out. So, when lead singer B.J. Barham opened with “Me + Mine (Lamentations),” a song of struggle and the forgotten middle class, I was taken aback. I quickly realized as my eyes teared up again that there was really no other way to start this set after the trauma of the pandemic. It was perfect. It was an acknowledgement of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

I sang loudly. I laughed. I danced. My husband and I looked at each other singing “Don’t want a day that doesn’t start with you.” I didn’t look at my phone to check the time. I didn’t take a fraction of the photos I normally take at concerts. I was immersed in the moment. I was finally living again.

I knew I missed live music, but I didn’t realize how much I had missed it until that moment. We talked with B.J. after the show – we met him previously, one of the nicest musicians we’ve had the pleasure of chatting with. I got to share with him how much his songs “The World is on Fire” and “A Better South” helped me cope through the craziness of the Trump presidency and countless examples of racial injustice. He explained how happy he was that people of our generation will hopefully bring about a new dawn of tolerance and love, especially in the South. The show itself was such a ray of hope, only the band’s fourth one so far on this comeback tour.

With every note played, every lyric sang and every cheer shouted, we were for the first time bonded by something more than our story of survival. We were bonded by the music.