Making Memories

My all-time favorite band, Rush, has recently started their R40 tour.  It’s supposed to be in celebration of their first album having come out 40 years ago, except now it’s 41 years, what with “Rush” having been released in 1974.

Their 1975 album was called “Fly By Night” and included a song called “Making Memories.”  And that’s exactly what the Canadian rock trio has been doing for decades.  So much so that they (finally!) got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 – a ceremony that I was thrilled to be in attendance for.  It’s something I’ll never forget and it’s something that the members of Rush still say now, two years later, was a bigger deal than they prepared themselves for.  That’s one of the memories that they’ve made that they won’t forget.

In 2008 I was preparing to go to the Olympics in Beijing and a former co-worker of mine urged me to take time out from the frenetic pace at the Summer Games to stop and look at where I’d gotten to in my career.  I appreciated – and heeded – his advice, and can say that it gave me a much different perspective from when I was in Greece for the Olympics in 2004.

So, what’s your Rock and Roll Hall of Fame moment?  What’s your Olympic memory?

On the episode of “Now Hear This Entertainment” that will be released in less than 48 hours, singer/songwriter Samantha Leigh talks about having recently gotten the opportunity to sing with Paul McCartney, and how that will certainly be a moment in her career and her life that she’ll never forget.

It’s a little thing called being in the moment.  Are you making sure to savor that golden ticket that you get?  Maybe it’s actually that – you’re “going to Hollywood,” advancing to the next round of “American Idol” auditions.  Maybe it’s finally getting to play a show that people had to buy tickets for – and did so in respectable numbers.

Perhaps a certain venue that you played really wowed you.  I can remember when I got one of my clients booked to perform on the Las Vegas strip when she was just 21 years old.  When we walked into the House of Blues, inside Mandalay Bay, she was nervous, of course, but I’m sure to this day she still remembers it as though it were last night.

“Life is too short” is a phrase that gets thrown around almost ad nauseam these days.  In my opinion, too many people use it as a figure of speech, or manipulate it to justify behavior that still isn’t right, even if you are trying to live every day as though it’s your last.  But when it’s time to hang up the microphone or the guitar or the drum sticks or whatever your instrument is, will you have made time to really embrace those shining moments?  Or will you hear stories like the above and say, “Yeah, I had a cool moment or two, but wow, I should’ve stopped to appreciate them then, because unfortunately they’re just a big blur with all my other gigs at this point.”

There’s still time.  Go make some memories.