today jonathon commemorates the fourtieth anniversary of the day he became disillusioned witht he beatles. reading it reminded me of my own disillusioning experience with one of my favorite musicians, elliott smith, though my experience wasn't nearly so bad that i remember the exact date even a few years later.
for years i had bought every album smith had made, and listened intently as he painfully poured his soul out. (i recently found a genre for smith more descriptive than my previous "good at being sad": "miserablist.") then i had an opportunity to see elliott smith in concert in chicago.
he took the stage and played through his songs almost exactly as they sounded on the CDs. he paused between songs for just a few seconds, and scarcely even seemed to notice an audience was there. he never once spoke to the audience beyond a simple "thank you." after he played the last song, he walked off the stage, and the show was over just like that.
it was a big let down. the music was just as great live as it was on recording; that wasn't the problem at all. the problem was that i had come to believe smith meant every word he sang, that he was something more "real" than a standard pop musician. and probably he was back when he wrote the songs, but by the time he got to chicago something had changed. he didn't mean what he sang. he was just singing because he was a singer, and someone had booked him a show to sing. he didn't want to be there singing these songs for me, but i wanted him to want to be there.