Music in New Paltz starts late and ends late. That’s just the way it is and always has been. When performers at the local arts centers, small theaters and dinner clubs, are saying, “Thank you, get home safe” and young parents are dismissing the child care, opening acts in New Paltz are check-one-two-ing their microphones as the crowds start to filter in.
Veteran players around here often roll their eyes when discussing New Paltz gigs for this reason. Many won’t even do them any more. Nobody gets home safe, precisely, from Snug Harbor.
Still, how I miss it right now. Indoor live music seems to be slated for a phase 16 or 17 return. And even then, how many venues will be left? How many bands? How many people willing to stand shoulder to shoulder?
So many questions, so little clarity. Sure, I feel a little bit of that “may you live in interesting times” participatory wonder, that sense of self-reinvention perforce. And we share the distinction of being witnesses to an era may someday be known as the change, the moment, the pivot. And good will come from it.
Good had better. The novelty, however, is long gone.
Read more installments of Village Voices by John Burdick.
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