By Garrick Hoffman

Sunday, November 10th, 2013, was my birthday (sounds of party horns). My ex-girlfriend and I were to go see my favorite solo instrumental acoustic guitarist, Andy McKee, in New Hampshire. He had posted on his Facebook that he would take requests for upcoming shows on his tour, and so I submitted my own, wanting to hear his songs “Hunter’s Moon” and his cover of Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.”

Indeed, the date that he was playing closest to my hometown was the same one as my birthday. My favorite kind of coincidence, and convenience! So with this in mind, I figured I’d milk the cow when I submitted my request on his Facebook, and mentioned that I would be seeing him on my birthday. He didn’t respond, but that’s okay because he’s a busy dude with scores of other fans barraging his Facebook page. We had seen him once before, and he hadn’t played either of those two songs, much to my dismay, although any night with Andy McKee is one I cherish.

We got there late. I was not impressed with myself because of this. I could hear music playing when we arrived. I became a little panicky and anxious to get inside; we had already missed God knows how many songs. I looked through the window from outside and there he was on stage, already wowing the audience with one of his magnificent tunes. I picked up the pace and urged my girlfriend to do the same. Any song missed was a calamity, I assure you.

We entered. The dark had befallen the venue, save the warm, inviting multitude of neon lights of purple and red and blue. He was near the terminus of his song “For Now” off of his album Joyland.

I thought, Dammit! How much have we already missed?! Well, according to the staff member who greeted us at the door, about half a dozen.

First famine, now this.

But then things got interesting, and I realized we were actually, in a sense, just in time. I asked a nearby attendee if Andy had already played my requested tunes, to which he said no, he hadn’t. When Andy introduced the next song, he said it was off of his album Joyland (sweet), and it was a song called “Hunter’s Moon” (double sweet).

I got all kinds of giddy. We had just made it in time. It would have been an odious tragedy to miss this. And he played it, and he rocked the shit out with all of those percussive slaps and pretty harmonics and so on.

Yep, loving life right now.

The following songs didn’t stay in my memory, at least in terms of their order. He joked of showing off, then proceeded to don his harp guitar, saying, “speaking of showing off!” The crowd laughed. And yes, you read it right, a harp guitar. It’s a standard acoustic guitar whose standard-ness is completely decimated by the integral – not attached – harp on the top of the guitar. It contains six bass-like strings that are plucked within the playing of the actual guitar.

“Yep, this harp-guitar belongs to one of the six harp guitarists in the world,” he joked. With this contraption in hand, he played “Into The Ocean” and “Gates of Gnomeria,” two songs that I was listening to in my earliest days of discovering him. “Gates” had always been one of my favorites, and it sounded crazy good live.

Then he strapped on his normal acoustic guitar (I say normal, but it’s custom made with the frets oddly slanted to his liking, presumably to accommodate to his style of playing). Then the famous words were announced. He described the next song as a song from his album Joyland, a cover of a song from the ’80s from a band called Tears For Fears. As soon as he said “a song from the ’80s,” I had already, somehow, known it’d be “Everybody,” rather than his cover of Toto’s “Africa”, which is equally amazing.

Then:

“So this next one is for Garrick.”

A very audible “WOO!!!” from my girlfriend next to me, followed by a more embarrassed/modest “WOO!” from me.

“Happy birthday! It’s today, right?”

“Yes, it is. Thanks man!”

“No problem! Glad to make you happy.”

I doubt you can get that from Metallica, or Taylor Swift, or Lil’ Wayne, etc…

He finished up his set, playing songs like “Ebon Coast,” “Nakawaga-san,” “Tight Trite Nite” – another cover – and more. We had missed his “flagship” song, “Drifting,” which has come to earn nearly 50 million views on YouTube. It’s the song that instantly hooked me into his music. The rest is history.

After his encores, Andy mentioned that he’d be in the room at the far end of the venue if anyone cared to meet him, say hi, get an autograph, etc. So we did, amongst a sizeable band of other fans. For the second time I was able to interact with him, and he signed the CD of his that I had just purchased. I asked him how I could support him to the maximum when he releases his EP, and he said he’d announce the ways to do so when the time comes. We got a picture of the three of us, I gave him a story of mine that I wrote about a tear jerking, yet euphoric experience I had listening to one of his songs, and the evening was then concluded. I walked to the car with my girlfriend in enormous jubilation (although I was slightly morose for having forgotten to get another hug from him…curse the gods of memory!).

Later in the show he had given another shout out to someone in the crowd, a man named Mike, who apparently had also submitted a request. I didn’t feel less special at all; I still felt profoundly elated, still singled out, still just happy to hear my name spoken into the microphone from a man whose music I have come to treasure for the last five years.

It didn’t seem to be Mike’s birthday, but Andy still gave him, his fan, the recognition, which seems something so rare to me from a musician or any artist maybe. It’s a breath of fresh air, and I feel that an artist like him is a gem in this world. Because that’s what any fan wants: to be singled out and identified, to know they aren’t just a ghost in the crowd, in the pool of hundreds or thousands or millions of other fans, although I know this isn’t always an easy task for big-name musicians.

They – no, we – want to be appreciated, because we give our appreciation by supporting that artist. We want to go to a show and make direct eye contact with, or pointed out by our heroes on stage; we want to be recognized that we are here with them, rocking out and enjoying the experience together. That we’re as unified as any army in the world, and we’ll pump our fists in the air together to prove it.

And Andy accomplished that that night, and that’s why he has come to be so highly revered as a musician and a human being. He’s loved and appreciated for such deep and frequent interaction with his fans. He’s humble and modest, he’s extraordinarily talented, he’s warm and approachable, and he wants people to feel he’s a human like them, that we’re all living in this same space together and that no one is inferior, or superior to one another. He’s just invested more time into his craft than others.

That’s the kind of musician I’m dedicated to.