UW Live in LA on 9/28/23

[botkiller]

Just a bit of a story about me and my going to see the boys in LA last year. Plus some videos/photos, if you wish to see them.

It's very important to me that I reclaim the music of Underworld as my "own" in terms of being a very important band to me.

In my relationship that recently ended, Underworld had been sort of co-opted in one of those situations where you introduce someone to more of the discography of a band that you feel really strongly about and then they become "Your band".

On September 29th, 2023, I flew to LA to see Underworld live for the first time in nearly 20 years. This was an important concert to me because I wanted for myself and my then-partner to see Underworld live. I had bought us tickets to the concert, a hotel room, and was really looking forward to the trip.

A few days before the trip, she told me that she couldn't go with me because of travel anxiety, which I do understand. However, I would find out later that the reasons for not going with me were much more, let's say, complex.

It definitely hurt that she didn't go with me, but I didn't totally suspect what was happening that caused her to decide to not come with me. It was hard to fly to LA by myself.

Add to that that I had somehow decided that I was going to ask her to marry me at this concert, and, yeah. It was a whole thing.

My good friend, Angus Khan, met up with me to go to the show. We hadn't seen each other in a very long time, so it was quite nice to meet up with him to go to the show.

If Angus hadn't been able to go with me, I would have been at the concert by myself, which would have been a drag. It was a great show (you can see the videos and photos attached to this post), but it had a tinge of melancholy to it to be certain.

The next day I flew back to Albuquerque and that night I found out the dark things that caused for my relationship to end, which definitely put a dark cloud over Underworld's music and that event in particular.

Music is a difficult thing for me on occasions, because I am a musician and have been my entire life. Music is connected to many events in my life, some of them very traumatic.

For instance, I couldn't listen to the music of The Smiths for at least five years after my marriage ended, because of the importance of their music to me and my ex-wife.

On another occasion, Underworld's song, "Sola Sistim", very literally saved my life because I was in a particularly bad work day, having just been yelled at by a client, and out of the blue, this song came onto the internet radio station I was listening to. In that moment, that song definitely pulled me back to reality.

I really didn't want for Underworld's music to be stuck in that limbo -- they were always "my band" and I want to ensure that they remain that, despite their music now being associated with a traumatic event.

Photos/video of the show: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8QfnHWHAadgfvdKW7

[Imagine a box]

Thank you for sharing your story. I hope that you can grow back into enjoying Underworld through all their recent music. You were one of the people who got to hear Techno Shinkansen, so cool!

[botkiller]

Hey, sorry to not pay attention to this thread for so long, but, thank you for saying that. I have since taken the power back when it comes to UW and their music because it has always been so important to me. I met someone really important to me a few months after this post, did a LOT of introspective work on myself, and I feel like I'm in the best place I've been in in my life. I've also written 35 new songs this year, one of which was a bit of a riff on/inspired by "Tin There", which is one of my favorite UW riffs on Pearl's Girl.

I'm always super grateful for the music that Rick and Karl have given the world because it very literally has saved my life multiple times.