A couple of days after the death of Les Paul, Dickey Betts performed at BriXton.  Dickey has been a rock legend longer than I have been walking the earth. About two hours into his performance, his simmering displeasure with his guitar tech reached its full flowering maturity. Dickey swung his $4,000 Les Paul over his head like a Viking axe and smashed it on the stage.

In the Other world, the world above ground and outside these walls, an incident like this makes everyone freeze.  Security is called, an incident report is filed, risk management is alerted, damage is calculated…anything necessary to get the ripples to stop.  Here, it opens the door to the unknown. The other musicians on the stage begin to improvise while no one is sure if the headliner is returning to the stage. The crowd begins to lean forward, willing to go where they hadn’t planned. The dual drummers become dueling drummers, alternating cooperating in their beats and then competing. Then Dickey returns to the stage and plays an entire new concert.  The night finally came to a close after over three hours of massive music, the lights coming on to drive everyone into the night while everything was still vibrating from the last note of the encore.

I am convinced that rock-n-roll is populated with prophets.  Whether they know God or not, they live and work with divine gifts.  They are able to walk into the unknown, but also catch us up in their momentum. They open up our souls without even knowing how they are doing it.  Just like their instruments, they vibrate with sound when they are struck by the Divine. Les Paul was like that.

I’d like to know who first called a guitar an axe.  Not a knife or a club, but an axe.  It cuts through things, but not in a subtle way.  It has to be used with force to be effective.  I read once about Ezekiel who was able to call fire down from heaven.  Once upon a time, he slaughtered a bunch of evil fake prophet wannabes for all the right reasons.  We all need this in our lives, to be violently cut away from fear or slow death or the wrong course and set free into unknown adventure and new truths.  Dickey Betts destroyed his pricey Les Paul.  It was his personal property and what he does is none of my business.  But I sure appreciate his sacrifice for a great show…

This week:

Tribal Seeds on Thursday – Reggae nights are cool beyond imagination.  Anyone who walks through the door feels like they belong…because they do.

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – The last time they were here, I got the world’s best neck rub from one of guys in the band. I think I’ll fake a headache to score another spoiling…

Iron Maidens – Seriously, what else could you do that would be as fun as this show?