“Tonight We Leave Chicago”

Achievement: #21. Sing "Tonight We Leave Chicago" while there

A bit of background on this Achievement: back in the early 2000s, I had a very serious relationship with a very fantastic band called The Slip. They’re still around, for the most part, although they don’t tour like they once did, and their sound has changed through the years (some say it has ‘evolved,’ but in my mind, the jury is still out on that observation).

It was because of that band that I ever discovered Boston, and because of that band that I first saw the Pacific Ocean or took my first train trip across the country. It was because of that band that I learned how to drive in a torrential downpour on the Turnpike, that I ever visited the Buffalo Public Library, and that I ever understood the fact that you can get up for an 8am chem lab if the event preventing your sleep is worth it enough. I saw them in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Providence, Cleveland, Fredonia, and a dozen other places. In our four-year love affair, I saw this band thirty times, and each one was something new.

Unfortunately, my one regret about this band is that I have never been able to take my husband to see them. Ironically, the month we moved back to Pittsburgh, they played in the ‘Burgh three days before we arrived home, and Los Angeles about a week after we left.

So while it hasn’t happened yet, I’ve tried to expose Michael to their good music as best I can, which includes my extensive backlog of live shows (I had been trying, at one point, to get every show I’d seen live where there had been a taper). And one song that I’ve always loved since the first time I heard it was a song of theirs called “Tonight We Leave Chicago.”

It’s about the road, and touring, and love, all of which things are incredibly important to me. Remember those music videos from Poison and Ratt from the 80s that are basically just tour footage, and the stage being assembled in fast-motion, and fans with their signs? If this song had a video, it would be that, but somehow much more romantic than anything Motley Crue could have come up with.

So as our train prepared to depart Chicago, I loaded up my iPod and let the song play.

Tonight We Leave Chicago
And somehow, for just a few minutes, I felt like it was 2004, and the world was still so full of promise again 🙂

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