Hot summer day under a tent in a field in rural North Carolina. A man starts strumming a mandolin in a chair. Soon like the misfit choir that they are, the members of the Collection slowly make their way to the stage for an outburst of communal chaos & sweaty songcraft. Think early Edward Sharpe or early Arcade Fire or Nathaniel Rateliff or maybe or possibly the Polyphonic Spree or a punk-rock-Up With People. We were totally mesmerized as David Wimbish & the shaggy shambolic band called the Collection brought it all.
Hot summer day some-12-years-later in an iconic Nashville dive, the same communal energy bears a lyrical folk-pop polish. David’s vocals & words have always reminded me of Chris Martin, but why are we in this covered-in-stickers-&-graffiti clubhouse & not at the sold-out Ryman or Ascend. The competitive pop music market is home to cosmic accidents & market vagaries, this we know. It can be hard out there. Another brilliant folkie lyricist friend is right now selling customized songs & hand-written lyrics on social media just to make some bills, because they haven’t been paid yet for their first overseas gigs.
It’s rough out there economically for the artists on the festival downcard. Constant touring in a van that will break down at some point can be rough on the mental & emotional health of the artists. Experts of the vulnerable expression & catchy melody may also be more likely to struggle with neurodivergence or addiction or strained personal relationships.
Despite this tsunami of risk, live popular music is the greatest mindfulness hack, it’s like a religion without being one. So it is with this night seeing The Collection. They have just dropped an self-empowering medicinal mental-health album called Little Deaths, but they have also said this is their last tour ever, with this current ensemble, with at least bassist Hayden & horn player Graham having worked with Wimbish for more than a decade.
Is it possible for music to be extremely joyful but devastatingly heart-wrenching at the same time. This will be the case with the transcendent pop anthems The Collection has brought us for years, rendered in mesmerizing live performances, whose intense intimacy merges into greatness that is measured in excess perspiration. Because this music doesn’t just move ya, it MOVES YA as it grooves ya!!!
The Collection catalog as streamed or downloaded from your service of choice is some digital dopamine. But even millions -- yes millions -- of streams does not make the rock n roll touring life necessarily sustainable without other side hustles. As popular as the Collection have been, this hasn’t necessarily translated itself into long-term career-sustaining suitcases brimming with cash. Now I am only speculating here at what appears to be an early retirement for the band, as-band. Their social media posts suggest the internal chemistry is strong, but it is time to move on.
I only speculate about these facts for how impactful these songs about mental health struggles are when you think about what the hard work is like from the other side of the performer-audience veil. Here is someone singing, jamming, tearing it up on stage, leaving it all out there on the stage, speaking from the heart about suicidal ideation & simply saying “you are worth it” through a song that says “I am worth it.”
The exuberant combination of keys, horns, guitars, bass, & drums convey that kind of over-the-top cup-runneth-over heart swell of orchestral pop, but it is held down every time by David Wimbish’s vocal intensity & confessional or therapeutic or theologically mystical lyrical messages that folks love to sing along with. When this tour is over, David assures us his solo career will continue. But if The Collection as The Collection are through, please try to catch them on this run, which goes through October. Please check out their entire catalog that is out there to stream.
Collection tour dates:
Sep 4 Wed - New York, NY
Sep 5 Thu -Philadelphia, PA
Sep 6 Fri - Vienna, VA
Sep 7 Sat - Elkton, MD
Sep 21 Sat - Graham, NC
Sep 27 Fri - Columbus, OH
Sep 28 Sat - Cincinnati/Covington, KY, United States
Sep 29 Sun - Louisville, KY
Oct 1 Tue - St Louis, MO
Oct 2 Wed - St Paul, MN
Oct 3 Thu - Omaha, NE
Oct 4 Fri - Denver, CO
Oct 5 Sat - Salt Lake City, UT
Oct 7 Mon - Portland, OR
Oct 8 Tue - Seattle, WA
Oct 10 Thu - Albany, CA
Oct 11 Fri - Hollywood, CA
Oct 13 Sun - San Diego, CA
Oct 14 Mon - Phoenix, AZ
Oct 16 Wed - Taos, NM
Oct 19 Sat - Austin, TX
Oct 20 Sun - Dallas, TX
Oct 22 Tue - Jackson, MS
Oct 23 Wed - New Orleans, LA
Oct 24 Thu - Memphis, TN
Oct 25 Fri - Atlanta, GA
Oct 26 Sat -Asheville, NC
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