#440 American Aquarium.

Ben graduated from high school in North Carolina in 2002. Until tonight, I’d never met any of his friends from his life there. Last week I listened to a song by American Aquarium and I was hooked. They sound like Counting Crows meets Ryan Bingham—an alt-country dream for me (on iTunes, download Katherine Belle, Hurricane and I Hope He Breaks Your Heart right now). It turns out the lead singer, B.J., was Ben’s friend at Rockingham County High School, they played basketball together, graduated together, and haven’t seen each other since then.
They played Ocean Springs and that made it really easy for us to come to the show then spend the night at Ben’s parents. There was a bear hug, talk about basketball, talk about high school. It’s fascinating to meet someone who knew Ben before me. It turns out the band’s most loved song, I Hope He Breaks Your Heart (a song oft sung drunkenly in bars with glasses held in the air) is about heartbreak and a girl they were friends with in high school, a girl whose picture I’ve seen many times, a girl who broke B.J.’s heart so profoundly he wrote one killer song to get over it.
It’s been a while since I saw a show besides Cary Hudson and we had so much fun. Now if I could catch them playing together, it’d be more than I could handle.
Me and ole Jedge Wedge
This guy was letting it all hang out on a Tuesday night