All the stage is a world, and every time I’m on one, everywhere I’ve ever been is available to me.

A year ago, (12/2/23) I played in a rock show at the Goshen Theater. It was 11 years since my feet last touched its boards.

At that time, in 2012, the Texarkana Two and I were opening up the album release show for Kansas Bible Company, after they had completed “Hotel Chicamagua” and were sharing it with a hometown crowd. And just as Jake Miller of KBC brought me into Sanchez Agency, the Agency brought me back to the Goshen Theatre.

I’ve always enjoyed being in historic theaters, and playing on their stages especially. I can’t imagine that the men who built it near the turn of the previous century had any idea that America would fall in love with something like electric rock music long after they drew their last breath. But there is a special quality to these large, old rooms; and that is their ability to contain any kind of performance.

If the human imagination develops some new type or genre of music or entertainment, I believe there is a good chance the historic theaters could handle them.

Two other things a theater can do are make the performer seem grand to the audience and help the performer play more expressively. I attribute this to the sheer size of the room, mostly, and the lights secondarily. When you’re on the stage you see, darkly, through the stage lights, the upper balcony and you want the energy of what you’re doing reach all the way up there.

I felt this during the Sanchez set with my solo in the song “Dance with You.”

I wanted it to go all the way to the top row, and to do this, I had to reach inward, deeper; in an opposite direction if you will. Sort of like pulling a slingshot back extra hard so the pebble will fly even farther.

I thought of Union Station, another grand room, albeit in South Bend. While no longer a station for passenger rail, the Station was used as a venue for weddings, trade shows, and most dear to my memory, high school dances. One of the best night of my teenage years was the Valentines semi-formal 1996. It was the end of my senior year. I had great chemistry with Andrea, my date. The stone of the building had a golden glow among the twinkly lights and streamers of the dance. The February night sky was black with snow clouds, whose flakes drifted gently down.

Andi and I danced like crazy. We tried to place in the dance elimination competition, but didn’t get too far because we were too wild, I think. When we slow danced, there was a tenderness of close friendship and I really think we both enjoyed those slow dances.

Sandock’s song, because he is South Bend native, and because the lyric describes a desire to dance “slow, like they did in the old days,” that I think of Union Station when I was an innocent teenager. It is a bittersweet nostalgia. During the other parts of the song, I’m slowly rolling arpeggios that remind me of “Miss You When You’re Gone” by the Cranberries, from their 1996 album, the same year as that dance I picture.

Aging does not take away the poignancy of those memories, nor does it diminish ones desire to slow dance with a beloved. A slow dance is something you can do when you’re old and gray and still the warmth of the embrace and the pathos of the song makes you feel ageless.

This past May, Elizabeth and I were at Mike Bruneau’s wedding reception. We were struck at how long we lasted during the anniversary dance. A traditional rite at weddings where all couples begin the song together, but every few moments, the DJ asks couples to leave by increasing increments of years married: 5, 10, 15, 20 etc.

After 20 years, the floor got pretty thin, and everyone looked so old! And there we were, with 25 years. Surely we weren’t that old! We had a good laugh and it felt special.

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Time Line of other Goshen Theater shows in the old days:

October 2007 – Bottle Rocket Blue has two songs in the soundtrack of an independent film by Goshen college student, David Murto. I was at the premier.

January 2008 – Bottle Rocket Blue (with Adam Cook on bass)

March 2008 – Automatic Rhythm section opened for Sandstorm on Sunday, and Bellwether.

January 2009 – Tom Adamson and Nighthawks (Barry and Monroe of BRB as rhythm section) opened for embryonic Kansas Bible Company.

August 2009 – Tom acoustic solo, opening for Beverly Bounce House and other locals. Public debut of “Hold Your iPod to My Heart.”

April 2012 – with Texarkana Two, opening for Kansas Bible Co.