The bright hues from the blue, yellow and purple lights dimmed and within seconds the excitement from the female-dominated crowd elevated. Seats were taken, drinks were bought and eyes were fixed because it was time. Time for after months of anticipation the Wachovia Spectrum to be packed and anxiously awaiting the return of the sultry, tantalizing, neo-soul star -- Maxwell.
Grown women with their men, without their men, with a gang of girls, or with only two of them were here.
Out of towners, recently married, students, aspiring lovers, and roughly the whole of Philadelphia were present.
Anxious and excited all in one breath because this one man was in attendance. His band, his voice, his music was in Philadelphia, live and in full effect.
I was 7 when his first studio album was released, and while I’m sure I didn’t quite understand what he meant by wanting to “lock us up in love for days,” I was certain that his voice alone represented music; real, classic music.
For my mother’s ears he was a hint of Al Green, a pint of Prince and a tip of Marvin Gaye, but for me he was Maxwell –fresh, authentic and alluring.
Therefore at age 20, in my light teal sheer top, high-wasted brown and black dotted skirt and my black ankle length booties I sat there waiting; with my camera barely leaving my fingertips and my eyes intensely stalking the stage, I sat anticipating the liveliest and most authentic concert that I dreamt of but still had yet to witness.
With in an instant of the last light dimming, the suspense was over.
“Let me grove with you mamaaaa…” were the first words that filled the Spectrum. An explosion of drums, guitars, and trumpets followed, and added to the soft but intense feeling that Maxwell began to offer in the first two minutes that he had been on stage.
If my eyes were bonded shut I would have thought I was front row, up close, smelling his cologne and picking up on each and every note strung out by the guitarist. But I was in section 312, row 12, seat 15, and swearing by the clear, distinct sounds I heard that he was next to me singing in my ear.
Within the next three minutes, “Dancewitme,” a track that Maxwell followers were introduced to on Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite made the already insane Philadelphia crowd go ballistic. In the first couple of moments the fluorescent lights transformed the intimate night into a sensuous one, and the live band instantly made my rather far-away seat feel close.
As the fingers of the musicians maintained their movement and Maxwell’s mouth continued to open I was lost. Lost in the intensity of his soprano, the volumes heard in the bass and the rhythm piercing from the strings.
The music drowned out the screams, the sounds from the unpaid and not very talented backup singers in the bleachers, and the gasps of “I love him” that could even be heard from the men who brought their ladies to the concert as a prelude to the rest of their evening.
A quarter OF THE WAY into the show Maxwell stood still at the edge of the stage, he cued the band with a single finger, lifted the mic to his lips, closed his eyes and then it began almost effortlessly.
He stared to sing AGAIN and we melted. We, as in me and my three companions sitting in section 312.
We, as in me and the two ladies in front who hadn’t sat down since Maxwell took the stage.
We, as in me and everyone else in the packed Wachovia spectrum who felt it in their bones when he sang “all the things we should have done that we never did.” We felt him, and by the passion heard in his falsetto, he felt us too.
I heard “This woman’s worth" many times before on the radio during my evenings driving back from work, as a soundtrack to romantic movie scenes, and from the privacy of my rather small but boisterous mp3 player head phones, but not like this.
I felt it in my bones. The drums, the strings, the organs, and the bass drowned my ears and his voice encompassed me slowly. Without a doubt I thought: If this isn’t love personified it‘s dangerously and unmistakably close.
The live experience was incomparable to any other music form I’ve ever witnessed. It was raw, intense, engulfing and organic.
Thirteen years later, I think I get it. The feeling that I felt but didn’t quite understand at age seven; the feeling that 30-year-olds appreciated and expressed when they experienced real music suddenly made sense.
Having felt the swarm of goose bumps on my arms, the gasps for air, the attention deficit, the instant high and love for the very first time --words still could not do the experience justice.
Maxwell left my ears how he had at age 7 –mesmerized, and floored and undoubtedly “locked in love for days”…to come.
