Patchwork city

This city is born of opportunity and discovery, hence why eight million people have turned up here. The history of this place is so near you can almost touch it. You ask people where they are from and no one is an American, they are Scottish or French or Caribbean or Dutch or Mexican. Everyone is excited about being here. Freshness and a strange trust exudes from the faces of the people. It is a hard city, admittedly, but with the world at your fingertips who couldn’t be excited?

I have been inundated with recommendations from friends of names and numbers of their various New York acquaintances. Everyone has a friend in NY it seems. It’s as if you are being set out on a blind date. You arrange a place, a time, ‘Yes, I’ll be wearing a red scarf, holding a rose, etc, etc.’ And they are always thrilling. Suddenly realize that you don’t know this person from Adam, you might not even get on. What if you have nothing to say to each other?

And so on the eve of one of these ‘dates’ I was readying myself to go and meet her for dinner when I had a call. It was from another London set-up who I’ve been trying to contact since I arrived. He was frantic on the phone with news of a secret gig of Neil Young in some dive in Brooklyn that night. Of course, you do not turn down an offer of this kind so I dragged the first ‘date’ along too.

But now I have two strangers who I am meeting for the first time together, this could be a disaster. Luckily the second date was late and I had just enough time to catch a little bit of history from the first before Neil entered the stage.

He was backing his wife Pegi Young, who at apparently 50, was just starting out her career as a musician. The music was somewhat ballsy and a little brash at times. Neil Young kept in the shadows moodily playing back-up with the rest of the ‘Survivors’ that were supporting her. The final song ‘Dog House’ was met with cheers and howls when they invited another crony up on stage who looked like something in between Pasty from Ab Fab and Ozzy Ozbourne.

But the real excitement came when Bert Jansch entered the stage. His jeans were low slung like a teenage boy but his voice and guitar was like something I’ve never heard. From the first refrain my heart was all a-shudder, even when he played a song about Pete Doherty. There was such sensitivity about watching a man play such delicate songs. His fragility might have something to do with his recent recovery from cancer.

The separate ‘dates’ did meet finally and did get on, though definitely very different people, but that is New York right?

What I realized listening to Bert Jansch play was that music transcends history. Just like New York, the essence and the soul of the place and the music is the same who ever enters it, who ever plays it. Bert sings songs older than anyone alive and they still ring true. This city is seeped in a newness that I don’t think will ever go away. The feeling of adventure and opportunity.