for emma ten year. for me ten year.

there's a way to talk about the magnificence of this show, thats both very long and abundantly sappy, through a long tale of reflections between the release of every bon iver album (and justin vernon side project) and it's correlation to my upbringing & my love for the one who sleeps next to me. in essence, his music has shaped me, and i attribute much of me to him.

but "you gotta be careful about nostalgia...there's a lot of problems with it, sometimes", something justin said in the first few moments of the show. here, instead, is the story without (too much) nostalgia, just the reality. for emma ten year is the ten year anniversary show of bon iver’s for emma forever ago.“this one-time concert [in milwaukee at the bmo harris bradley center] will offer a salute to the songs that took us around the world and beyond a decade ago. Featuring a number of musical guests old and new, the performance is set to mark a singular experience – a unique presentation of what was and what is.” during the concert, we cried a ton. we laugh-cried too. yet, it also felt like we were never there, like nothing was there. after the concert, we woke up, gathered our shit and went home to chicago, feeling open but unable to talk about it, wondering if what we saw/heard was what we wanted or expected. settling and sitting on our experience at for emma ten year, feels akin to eaux claires iii, wherein we both had an incredible difficult time articulating what transpired. perhaps because some things transcend language, maybe there are no words to describe the experience. there was magic, I do know that. we were so there, i know that as well. in the present. not in our seats. not on our phones (we took no photos) but in the music. most of all, I can tell you at many points there was too much heart in one room for me to handle.  

so perhaps it isn't what we heard or saw, maybe it's about what we felt and continue to feel long after the house lights came up.