Again, Love is not what you think it is ... beautiful, indeed.
One time, we drove over to see Preston (Love) play in Omaha, and we found ourselves in the strangest situation. It was a cold night, in a danky club somewhere on the east side of Omaha. The place was full of smoke. You couldn't breathe at all ... so of course my buddy, (the other) Todd wanted to smoke. We were, of course, too young to smoke, but we stood out anyway, and no-one really cared. (Or so it seemed.) So he asks someone if they have any matches. "We don't call it, 'matches' we call it 'fire.' And I don't have any fire."
So he asks the next person, "Hey - um ... do have any fire?" They answer no.
Suddenly this huge guy appears outta nowhere, and says in a really aggressive tone, "Why do you white boys want FIRE?" He was so angry and was probably on coke, or something. Man, were we scared of this guy. We were terrified. This guy was just livid, and thought that we were going to burn down the place, or something. My friend just said sheepishly, "I just wanna smoke, man." The guy was huge, and pissed off. Some weird white boys had rambled into his club, and wanted to start a fire? Hell, no! Then Preston stepped in, and said, "Leave these boys alone. They're with me." And that was that. That other guy could've killed Preston, but he stood up for us. It was a very brave thing to do. We stayed and enjoyed the music all night. He played the holy hell outta that saxophone that night.
We didn't even know that clubs like this existed. We were completely out of our element. And we were 16. This was not on the beaten path of high-school discos and dances. But Preston showed us another universe, another world. It was real. I will forever be indebted to all the things he showed me, musically and otherwise. Thank you, Preston!!! I miss you and will write another 20 blogs about you!
Love, the Music. -Todd
Posted by calico at August 15, 2004 01:06 PM