"The Moment That We Live For" Part One - Happy Birthday, Dear Alan
Most sincere "Happy Birthday" wishes-in-advance to the two-thirds of the GBS Original Three who are still a few days away from becoming another year older, perhaps wiser as well; may health and hope join with happiness to make the year to come remarkable for each of you and those you love.
As for the remaining member of the Original Great Big a Trois, today is his day and he always gets the Full Birthday Treatment here. This is Part One of that Full Treatment; Part Two can be found below.
For Alan on his birthday:
Looking back over the past birthday-to-birthday year, several specific possibilities come quickly to mind in answer to the question of this year's greatest accomplishment, speaking in terms, of course, of those accomplishments which are public knowledge: The release of the excellent Southern Shore CD you produced for the Irish Descendants was a stellar way to begin your birthday year (also adding another well-crafted songwriting collaboration to your increasingly impressive tally with Not For The Money Alone), and your Genie Award nomination for "Young Triffie" was an equally impressive achievement. But even with as signficant and praiseworthy as these achievements are, still, they are bested by several even-more-admirable accomplishments your own hard work and determined persistence have earned you the right to claim your own fair share of.
The first such accomplishment is less a purely individual act and more one in the category of outstanding achievement while working within a larger group toward a common goal: In this past year, you have indeed become the public face of the continuing campaign to make Daffodil Place a reality and a respite for Rural Newfoundlanders; wherever I travel, be it on the Mainland or in Newfoundland, whenever the conversation with Newfoundlanders turns to Daffodil Place, there you are, again and always: Daffodil Place, sure, that's the charity Alan Doyle's supporting; it's got to be a good one if he's after putting his name and time into it.
In this as in so much of what you do, you are the unparalleled, incomparable, and quintessential Front Man; you stir and move and persuade solitary individuals into rare moments of perceiving, and on occasion embracing, a reality which is just a bit larger than their own self-boundaries. Few causes are more worthy than this one of that effect you have the unique power to engender, and your efforts are pivotal in laying the foundation of a legacy of incalculable worth. You have worked hard for an excellent cause and you been instrumental in turning hope into reality; you, and everyone who cares about you, should be proud of those efforts and their success.
The second such accomplishment is somewhat more subtle, at least in process if perhaps a bit less so in end result, and it too is a high achievement of effort undertaken while working within the framework of a larger group, this group perhaps not necessarily completely like-minded nor always sharing a common goal. Every acquiesence and accommodation, each compromise and sacrifice, all of the negotiations and capitulations you have made step-by-step along your own path to getting this new CD created and completed, as well as in seeing all of those calendar pages of the Tour Book inked in with upcoming gigs, is an accomplishment of the highest order - formidable challenge met head on and conquered in the name of heart's desire.
Ruthless honesty in acknowledging need, keen intelligence in assessing cost, relentless determination in taking necessary action: your own efforts combining with those of others to bring about as much of what you most desire as is possible; whenever in this beautiful life any one of us reaches out and catches hold of as much of what we most desire as is possible, that is an accomplishment that merits equal measures of respect and awe. A very good year, Alan.
So much for the year that was; time to move on to the new year that begins today - to Here and Now, if you will. It's always so much simpler to talk about the admirable accomplishments that have already taken place than it is to take the risk of offering advice for how to deal with what is presently here and what lies ahead. I suppose I could take the easy way out and simply suggest with all honesty that in this next year you should continue allowing the genuine and dear good-hearted man you are to show - in all of his intelligence and wit and complexity and contradiction - even more than you increasingly have been as time goes by.
But even though that would be perfectly acceptable birthday advice, as well as something I do hope you continue on with, I think I'm going to opt for somewhat less caution and say instead that my advice to you for this coming year is that you seek out a reliable mirror, one that shows you a true and unwavering reflection of the beautiful man you are, both inside and out. Who you are is at the heart of what you write; you need to see that man clearly if you are going to write him as well as he deserves to be written. You need to see him clearly if he is to have a chance at getting so much of what he deserves.
Oh yes, you should also take each and every opportunity you get to sing Where I Belong. And you could grow that gorgeous beard back too. Then there's the matter of that solo CD, and writing more tunes with Russell and producing CDs and hosting events. Always writing, in any genre, as well as...I suppose I had better stop before I get carried away with birthday advice.
Happy birthday, Alan. I hope this year brings you all that your heart desires.
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A few (comparatively speaking, at least) photos of some of the best and brightest (as well as sweetest and sexiest) of Alan's performance moments over the course of this Birthday Year. Quite a few in this entry - 39, to be exact, and for good reason - might make this a bit slow to open.
The first GBS show of the year (of Alan's Birthday Year, that is) for me was Edfest in late July. There were also shows in Calgary and Fort MacMoney, and I think one in Grande Prairie too, but I went to EdFest and then to the ZooTunes show at home. At EdFest, the crowd was given exactly what it wanted, and that big screen behind the stage made for a fascinating double perspective.
ZooTunes in Seattle at the end of that same late-July weekend, a sweet and silly show blessed by the glow of lovely afternoon light caressing and causing an even-lovelier man to shine more brightly.
The next set of shows was in August: Ridgefield CT, Hyannis MA and Lowell MA (to which I went, though only a few of the photos from those three shows have managed to get edited so far), and Northampton MA and Freeport ME, to which I did not go. The choice of Lowell paid off like the lotto: Not only was it a thoroughly enjoyable show with a great crowd on a balmy summer night, there was also the lovely bonus of Alan's coming out for soundcheck looking, appropriately, spectacular in his glasses; the soundcheck wound up being nearly as much of a delight as the show itself would be. Rather an epiphanic evening in the pub following that show too. I have a few photos of the charming fellow at soundcheck, plus one photo from that night's encore.
The entire Loch Ness experience was without a doubt the most miserably uncomfortable of any show I have attended thus far (it's now routinely known as The Day Of The Flood in Runrig circles); all I really need to say is that it rained so much, it washed some of the colour out of my hair, that and to add that we were out in that Flood for 18 hours straight. One more thing that must be said: It was worth every single miserable second. Seeing GBS come out and electrify a sodden, huddling crowd of some 20,000 - the vast majority of whom had never heard their music and who had come to see another band - would have been worth a week spent in that great big puddle of mud.
Two from the English shows, the first from the Beautiful Days Festival near Exeter and the second from London's Borderline. Beautiful Days was fascinating, though I lack decent photos to show why, since I nearly fried my camera by getting it so wet the day before in Loch Ness. The Borderline show was fiercely played, but equivocal and a little unsettling; as I said in an earlier entry, one remark Alan made there is still haunting me, still waiting patiently alongside his most-recent such comment for their moments of refutation. In advance of those anticipated moments, all I can say for now is that opportunity and backstage passes need have no numeric limits, and that while I think the polar bear is both magnificent and majestic, I would still say the true metaphor will always be the lion...and also that Hawksley was spot-on with his initial response of "Awesome". Awesome, indeed.
Tonder was an utter and unmitigated delight, and these photos (one of these days I will finally get the rest of the Tonder pictures edited) document two of my favourite moments of the entire year. At the very least of the entire year.
The Rogers show at the Glacier in Mt. Pearl at the beginning of September, another well-played show but also a jarring return to the "normal" World of GBS.
Part Two of The Very Good Birthday Year Of Alan Doyle to be found below.
