Two of my favorite live music moments from this year were getting to see Goose play the full Autumn Crossing suite at sunset on the Deschutes River and getting my brain totally melted at my first-ever Billy Strings show in Eugene.
I wouldn't have expected my other favorite moment to be Spafford covering a Demi Lovato song in a sweaty basement in downtown Portland, but here we are.
Getting back into this band in the last few months after six or so years away has been really fun, and it all culminated in this November Bend > Portland run that turned out to be one of the best trips I took this year, music-related or otherwise. The band sounds amazing these days, they're super locked-in when it comes to long-form improvisations, and I really enjoyed being able to pay $30 for a ticket to see a great band play in a gnarly-but-in-a-good-way basement/bar instead of packing into yet another amphitheater or arena with thousands of other fans and having to navigate the whole "scene" that comes with that much bigger but often not better situation.
Anyway, this was a great way to conclude the run, and if you squint you can see the back of my head doing the middle-aged-white-guy bop multiple times in this video.
