It's Still Life

Where music lives not just in the ears, but in the bones—sometimes shattering boundaries to write new stories within.

Joe Bonamassa — Brighton Centre (27 April/25)

Second row; first two seats on the left of the centre block—we’re close enough to see a trickle of sweat.

The lights search the room, then settle on the stage.
It’s the lighting engineer’s 25th birthday, and later—after Joe teases, “That boy is the youngest person here at the Brighton Centre”—we all sing Happy Birthday to him.

Except for those who dye their silver, everyone here looks is well over 50.

And there he is—Joe Bonamassa.
Black suit. White shirt. Wrap-around sunglasses.
Strolling in with a ruby-red guitar.
He owns the room.

My energy kicks up a notch at his slightly off-kilter, idiom-bent attitude, where the clothes don’t quite match the image but somehow look effortless and true.

Mellow.
That’s the word: mellow.

Without a breath of delay, he strikes a chord—
amplifying straight into my lungs.
It’s a story bubbling just beneath the surface, ready to spill out:
maybe jazz, maybe blues, maybe laughter, maybe melancholy.

It’s a tuneful conversation.
Weaves its own tale.
It tunes the room like a fork striking glass.

And again—it’s the pauses that hold me.
Yes, of course, the music does too—but the pause holds me in midair.
When the notes come tumbling, rapid-fire from his fingers, they release me.

It’s to be freed.
It’s to fly.

I let my body feel what it wishes.
I feel the rising static and spark of energy in the room—
4,000 people, Joe said.

His music was like a complex soul—
full of heart, intellect, and an irresistible urge to connect,
to create this moment for me, for us, for them.

I love listening to music (I listen to it nearly all day)—
any and almost all kinds—
but I know very little about the technicalities, the mechanics,
the structure of a guitar (although I think a bass guitar has the long neck thingy…).

But I know one thing for certain:
my obsidian ring—given to me years ago by an old friend who died last June—
that ring snapped in half during the show.

Something was released.
I didn’t just hear the music; it resonated inside me.

When obsidian breaks, it isn’t failure.
It’s a release.
It’s a boundary that’s broken and rewritten.

That’s what music can do.

Thank you, Joe.