Keepin' Time: Last night I turned 16 again

Once every three to five years, I find a band that truly shakes the foundations of everything I have come to believe about art, poetry and music. Most recently, readers of The Clock have been treated to my ranting and rambling about a punk-by-way-of-arena-rock-band called The Gaslight Anthem. When I was a ten or eleven, my parents had to listen to me talk about Blink-182 all day. Literally, all day. I can't really explain it, but you know what I mean. Sometimes you hear a band and it just makes sense.

Somewhere in between Tom Delonge and Brian Fallon, I fell head over heals in love with a manic depressive bi-polar poet from Los Angeles named Max Bemis. Max fronts a band called Say Anything, and for the last six years he has guided my hands and heart through all of life's troubles. Max understands the things that make you feel insane because Max is quite literally insane, which makes him the perfect poet laureate for the disenfranchised and over privileged youth of America. 

To make a long story short, at some point my obsession with Max became shared by thousands and thousands of other people. I went from seeing him play first on a five band bill to headlining (and sometimes selling out) big clubs. He was on magazine covers. Kids in my high school knew the words to "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too." In essence, Max, as I had seen happen to so many other artists over the years, was no longer my little secret. He sobered up, got on the right meds and became a rock star. Max Bemis was no longer my hero; he was everyone's.

In all honesty, I am elated that Say Anything has become as popular as they have. I am thrilled that someone like Max can sell a lot of records and tickets and t-shirts because he is a wonderful human being (from what I can tell) and more importantly, he is very open about his past drug abuse and issues with depression and mental illness. Max is in a position to help people, and he truly does through his lyrics and songs.

After a questionable, lukewarm double album Max bounced back last year with the self titled Say Anything, the perfect mix of the open diary, heart on tattooed sleeve emo he started out with and the smart indie pop he had begun crafting on more recent albums. 

Despite the musical return to form however, the last few times I had seen Max live, I was unimpressed. The wild-eyed reckless abandon of his younger years seemed to have given way to some kind of rock star comfort zone. He sang wonderfully, but seemed for the most part to go through the motions and play the songs he felt compelled to play. I would hate to say that he started to see himself as an "artist" instead of a "singer," but maybe after you've been on the cover of every major U.S. music magazine, it can go to your head a little. So when my girlfriend told me she wanted to go see Say Anything when she was visiting I acquiesced, ever ready to hear some of my favorite songs live, but my hopes were not as high as they had been five years ago about the overall quality of the impending live performance.

He was amazing. Something changed in Max over the last year or so. There was a spark and a fire in him last night that I haven't seen in a while. He jumped up and down maniacally so much that it made me question whether he'd gone off his meds again, thanking the 

crowd in between every song and busting out oldies he hadn't played in years. Maybe it's his happy new marriage with Eisley singer Sherri Dupri, or the thrill of touring with his idol and Two Tongues band mate Chris Conley, or the success of his new solo album Max Bemis & the Painful Splits or maybe he really has just gone completely insane again, but last night I fell in love with Max Bemis and his songs all over again. I felt the same way I felt when I first saw him all those years ago, with all the passion he brought to the stage when he was 18. So welcome back Max, we've missed you, and you better believe I'll be right up front singing like my 16 year old self next time you come to town.