Rock and Roll Scripture: It’s the last night of our tour, we’re gonna rock you through the roof just wait and see The Stray Cats

So there it is – the last gig. It sounded good from where I was standing. We finished ‘The Girl with Jesus in Her Eyes’ at the same time having made it through the ending without a hitch. On ‘St. Augustine’, Alex played some of the best guitar I’ve ever heard. Like, ever. Not just from him, from anyone. Like, ‘pull over on the highway to ride it out’-type quality. The folks got their money’s worth. We sold some CDs.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The day started easily. Our second night in the same place, the gig that evening in the hotel, we had half a day of leisure before set up and sound check. For ten straight days we’ve had to get up, get fed, and get driving to the next venue, but today we could relax in the Alps.

We rode a chair lift up the mountain, the view simply ridiculous. I have pictures, and I’ll likely post ‘em (or at least a link to the gallery containing them) once I get home and edit them properly, but I’m sure they’ll fail (utterly) to capture the scene. There was a little restaurant at the top of the lift, and we stopped in for a bite before setting off.

Hiking between seasons – before the tourists come and after the days have shortened – the trail was mostly quiet. The first stop on our hike was a small Alpine lake, nestled in a high mountain valley. This late in the year the valley only gets about an hour of direct sunlight, but it fought to make an appearance for us. The effect was spectacular – the peaks wearing a late-autumn halo, gazing down with benevolent detachment. As we crested the little rise that had obscured the small, just-frozen lake, Alex observed that Switzerland … tosses off stunning beauty like [the USA] throws up Starbucks. Too true. Again, I have pictures – they will not capture it.

Kevin continued down to the lake, ultimately laying down by the shore, while Alex and I scrambled up to a explore a shallow cave, really more a pock mark in rocky side of the mountain. About halfway up I realized it was a lot farther than it looked, and by the time I got to the cave I was sucking air. Alex paced it out at 169 paces, but those are ascending Alpine paces. I dreamed we were ancients, sitting on our haunches waiting for the elk, spears in hand (or maybe not even yet spears – maybe rocks, piled next to us in easy access), and stared to the skies.

From the lake we made our way down, down, down the mountain, through the tall pine forest, a dry, rocky creek bed winding its way down with us. We slipped on loose gravel and leaves, cursing them. We worried about our ankles, exhilarated in the activity, the thin mountain air, the view, and the break from ‘the one thing’. We were glad.

By the time we got back to the hotel, tired and hungry, we had a scant 90 minutes before setting up for the last gig. Filtzbach is just up the mountain from Mülehorn, Paul’s hometown, and he presided over the festivities, hovering for a bit before settling back to listen to the sound check. You sound tired…, he reflected.

And so we are, Paul, but (and returning, now, to the gig) tired like a day at the beach, 6 years old, falling asleep in the back seat… tired like 4:00am on my wedding night. We played quietly and beautifully, with ease and comfort. We played with our hearts full and broken, knowing that the tour was over. In only a few short hours we’d be back in the States, back to our jobs, back to our ‘other’ lives, our chosen lives, simultaneously (and paradoxically) glad and sad, the primary emotions simultaneously (and paradoxically) perfectly descriptive and woefully inadequate, this tour fading to sweet memory.

God, I wish I’d have been in the audience…

Set one

1. Black Money
2. Ballad of the Parted Ones
3. Gibsonton, FLA
4. No Place for the Lonely
5. Out of Time
6. The Girl with Jesus in Her Eyes
7. Cry for Home
8. Hark the Heart and the Arrow
9. I Am Carrying a Mournful Tune

Set two

1. Country Lines
2. Red Moshannon
3. Little Magnolia
4. Jealous Kind
5. Tijuana Line
6. Broken Heart Tattoo
7. I Want You (B. Dylan)
8. St Augustine
9. The Last Goodbye

Encore

1. I Still Miss Someone
2. Dead Flowers

And so now we’re traveling back. It’s about 7:30pm Switzerland time (though some other time completely wherever the hell I am right now – over the ocean, I suppose) – the first time in 11 days that we’re not relaxing before a gig (or, in my case, negotiating the pre-gig nerves and inexplicable sleepiness). It feels strange, though less strange that it did last time I was here, doing this. Hopefully tomorrow dawns with nothing more than a little jet lag – I’d rather not afford a full-blown identity crisis the morning of my first day at work, you know?

Damn, I miss it already…