The Meeting of the Spirits

After searching "John MacLaughlin" at youtube.com last week, one of the results yielded a song entitled "The Meeting of the Spirits". It showed a performance of the then Mahavishnu Orchestra with Jean Luc Ponty on the violin.

It made me wonder what a meeting of spirits meant, last Saturday, I began to realize what it meant.

After four weeks of band rehearsals for the upcoming silver Jubilee of Batch '82 of our highschool, I had a chance again to play infront of a big crowd after a long vacation from my musical hobby.

The rehearsals were great, well...most of them, but I forgot the feeling one gets when a big crowd is watching.

Soundcheck was scheduled at 2PM, so I had my wife drop me off at my regular scooter shop to enable me to get my scooter. I then proceeded to the venue to check the equipment and how we sounded as a band.

To my disappointment, 2 band members did not show up on time. But when they did, we proceeded to run through the hardest songs to make sure everything was in place. My band mates told me we sounded great and that I should put in 100% more power to my drum playing, (according to our lead guitarist), a thing that would surely happen when I see a big audience.

And happen it did. We had to get home to freshen up, but due to the terrible traffic caused by the heavy downpour, I was stuck for more than an hour.

On the way driving, I thought heavily about the possibility of my youngest son watching the event. I went on to focus more on getting us there together on time.

I got there a few minutes later than the agreed time but it was OK as everyone was busy registering and greeting long lost friends, classmates, etc.

The rest of the guys showed up and voila, we were ready to set up and we were given the signal that we were on in 15 minutes.

Band leader freaked out, our bassist was missing. I called, and gladly got the good news that he was a few minutes away.

My next worry was my youngest son. Remembering his anxiety to see his pop play on stage for the first time in his life, I sent a text message to my wife that said : were on in 15.

Upstage, I sent a last message to her that said : starting in 5.

Then, my bassist friend, gives me a big smile and lifts a cold can of beer to sort of say..."enjoy the party". That did it all.

I was loaded before the show started ( to say the least), and according to our keyboard player...he was flying. Out in the parking lot, my son was flying too, running as fast as he could to catch our first number.

The rest is history. I can't say that the performance was flawless, but I can definitely say that the energy was superb, and all out.

While we played, I experienced the "Meeting of the Spirits". The smiles on the faces of my band mates after each song we played, the high fives and handshakes from the audience after the performance, and most of all, my sons embrace after I had just gotten off stage.

While I was changing to a fresh shirt from my sweat drenched shirt, he said "Pop, you were good". I guess during the 9 songs we played, his spirit met with ours too.