And the world, it really is on fire

So sang Tilly and the Wall tonight at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro. So was the show, and so was the audience.

I went because I'd liked a couple of the group's songs a little bit and because Sarah wanted to go.

I left in love with the band's music. For the first time in many, many years, a band's live performance sounded better to me and won me over more than their recorded music. Because of that effect, I can't say right now if my love of their music will remain after I buy and listen to their CDs, but I hope so, I really hope so.

Everything about their show worked. The sound mix was good; we were in a club and could actually understand the words. The songs ranged across a wide spectrum in tone and style. Every single person in the band seemed to be having a great time. Even the use of a tap dancer--yes, a tap dancer--to provide percussion (she danced on a miked, raised platform in the center rear of the stage) worked beautifully. The audience was into it and grew more so as the show went on.

Sarah once wrote an essay on the power of live music. Tonight showed it to me yet again. I honestly wish everyone reading this could have seen the show.

Driving home, both of us still buzzed from the concert, we knew we had to have dessert--but where to go at 12:45 at night?

Only one answer: Waffle House.

There we sat, father and daughter but also just two people touched by the same show, at the counter, eating our grilled cheese sandwiches and a shared piece of Waffle House chocolate pie, admiring our Waffle House plastic toothpick, whispering remembered Bill Hicks lines ("Lookee here: we got us a reader), the music still with us and in us and all around us, and I realized as I occasionally do just how fortunate I've been to have so many wonderful moments in my life, just how lucky I am. I really am.