I want to hear some music...

Last night Freddie Fame and I went to see Jewel at the Florida Theatre in downtown Jacksonville. We're both broke twentysomethings, so we weren't even planning on going, but then the power of Twitter intervened and I won two tickets from Jewel from herself (who is gracious enough to give away tickets to fans with low funds for each show).

Here's a little, short history of Jewel in my life (trust me, it runs so much deeper than I can write here). "Pieces of You," her debut album which became a staple of the '90s with songs like "Who Will Save Your Soul" and "You Were Meant For Me," was the first CD I ever owned. My parents got it for me, along with a portable CD player (yeah, remember those beasts?) for Christmas one year when I was in elementary school. I can't remember the exact year, but it was pretty close to around the time the album came out. Since then Jewel has released album after album, and I've collected them all. I like to think that my relationship with Jewel is like my relationship with my cousins-- there since the beginning, and even though I don't see her very often, it's absolutely amazing when I do.

Okay, so back to the concert. I'd seen Jewel once before, towards the end of high school, on her solo acoustic tour to promote her album 0304 (which was not an acoustic album by any stretch of the imagination, but she still completely rocked it). Her opener for this tour was Ryan Cabrera (remember him?) but this was before he was on MTV so we were quite shocked when, a few months later, he popped up and was dating Ashlee Simpson. I left that concert totally in awe of Jewel and her voice and her complete honesty, just her and guitar. I loved every second of it. So when I heard she was coming to Jacksonville and I didn't have the money to go, I was bummed (I am, after all, a college graduate who can't seem to find a job). But then I won tickets, texted Freddie Fame to tell him we were going, and got really, really excited.

Here's the thing about Jewel. Sure, she was pretty massive in the '90s, because, honestly, what girl doesn't know every word to "You Were Meant for Me"? And yes, her voice is absolutely amazing (to get the full effect of her voice, you really have to see her live...recording studios cannot even begin to capture it in its totality). But it's more about her honesty. When she sings, you know, without a doubt, that she means every word. And girl's been through some shit. She grew up in Alaska without running water or other things we take for granted, and pretty much everyone knows she lived in a van for a while. So she's earned every ounce of success. And when she sang a song about how she was the culmination of her family's sacrifice, it honestly almost made me cry (a first for a concert, by the way!) because I feel like I owe it to my parents and my grandparents and the rest of my family to be as absolutely successful as I can make myself, no matter what I'm doing. If all my dreams come true, it will be because of them. Jewel made me realize this last night.

So Jewel, if you ever read this, thank you so much for everything you've done for me over the years without even knowing it.

Peace & Love,
the Dormouse

PS- Freddie Fame and I also now have an obsession with the girl who opened for Jewel. Her name is Meiko and she's pretty rad.