Tonight I had the pleasure of seeing one of my favorite bands live for the second time. And as before, they left me in a state of complete bewilderment.
Matt Berninger is a captivating performer, but not in the traditional sense by any means. This time around I was not fearful for his life as he stumbled around stage, coming dangerously close to the edge many times. Despite the many cups of white whine he devoured throughout the set, each song was delivered with ease and unbelievable passion. It's as if Berninger enters another world with each song, bringing his audience with him. You can't help but feel as though you are being transported back in time to a certain emotion - the emotion that was the initial spark for the flame that burns strong within each powerful song. Forget the other musicians on stage, when Berninger is front and centre I found it hard to move my eyes away from him.
Each song seems to paint a different Berninger and a different relationship. His songs are precariously detailed with sentiment that seeps through the mundane details of a day that is illuminated through a nostalgic sense of hope. Fake Empire is a perfect example of the everyday coming to life through Berninger's talented prose:
Stay out super late tonight/Picking apples, making pies/Put a little something in our lemonaid and take it with us/We're half awake in a fake empire/ We're half away in a fake empire
Another saturday afternoon? Or a dream world? For Berninger it seems as they blend together to created the nostalgic world of song that drives the very meaning behind his existence. All his songs are crafted around one main ingredient - heartache, but its assembling is done in away that makes you want to fall deep in love and have that love fall completely apart so you can write a song about it. However, this process cannot be romanticized in a way that takes away from Berninger's craft. His songs are not about meaningless old loves that were capitalized on after the fact for good story telling; the depth of each song highlights the immense about of emotion that Berninger feels for all his characters - whether those are past loves or past selves. For each song he becomes that past self, reminding us all that as much as we try to forget life's most painful memories, those are scars that we will carry with us throughout life.
Perhaps that is what Berninger (and his band) does best - remind us of our own scars and painful memories that are what makes us who we are and what makes us human beings. At the same time that we are singing along to Berninger's melancholic view on the world we are also singing the tune of our own melancholic lives and through this sense of unity there is a sense of hope that no matter how hard life seems sometimes, no matter how many times we may feel our hearts shatter into a million pieces, there is a sense of hope that we are all in this crazy ride of life together.
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