Tuesday night, a good friend of mine texted me to tell me that he had an extra ticket to a concert to see a few 90s rockers, STP, Live and Soul Asylum. Seeing some good ol’ rockers and old friend sounded good to me, so I quickly said yes. He even offered to pick me up. Pretty nice.

My friend told me that he and his wife originally planned this as “date night”, but his mother-in-law got sick, so his wife was taking care of her. After he kept calling it date night a few times after that I felt the need to say (purely for humor value), “Now, I just want to do some expectation settings, because I can’t help but notice that even though your wife wasn’t able to join you tonight, you’re still referring to this as ‘date night.’ I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page here about tonight so that there’s no misunderstandings and set some boundaries. Unless you’re picking up the tab for dinner, of course.“ Yes, that’s my real life sense of humor, for better or worse!

So we walk over to the outdoor concert. The weather is decent, a bit muggy, but still decent with the band Soul Asylum playing, “Black Gold,” Cool. STP put on a good show, but they clearly had at least a keyboardist off stage or they used a backing track. The giveaway is that I could hear the synth parts. But it was the last band of the night, Live where I realized how that band pushed the envelope lyrically to a place where rock lyricists hadn’t gone before. Yes, it’s easy to think everything under the sun has been already written. But I think, this band will prove you wrong.

Doubt me? Okay, I challenge you write now – anyone – tell me how many songs you can name with a placenta reference in it? Go ahead. Tell me? Don’t google it. You’re a smart individual. You know your lyrics. How many?

You got nothing. Nada. Zip.Because Live traveled where few bands have dared travel before. It makes you think what new frontiers may lie ahead for them in the future. What might be next? Menopause? With the exception of Spinal Tap, I think few bands could cover the same lyrical territory that I heard from the band. There’s another song from them with lyrics that sounded straight from Spinal Tap, but I’ll stick with this one for now:

Lightning Crashes – Live
“Lightning crashes a new mother cries
Her placenta falls to the floor
The angel opens her eyes
The confusion sets in…”