Stay With Me

Ian McLagan at Joe's Pub last night.

It was one of those nights.

I'd been looking forward to this show for a while. I'm a big fan of McLagan's and I admire him. He's played on some monstrous tracks in some tremendous bands with some hugely talented people and seems to have gone through his life living it precisely the way he has wanted to, with abandon and a healthy recklessness that you can practically hear when he plays and sings. He was in the Small Faces and then The Faces, he's played with the Stones and the Who and Dylan and continues to tour frequently with Billy Bragg and with his own Bump Band. And every week he plays a free show in Austin for tips and has a grand time doing it.

As I took my place in the back and the lights went down, I began to smile with expectation. Soon after the show started, Elvis Costello snuck in and took a seat in the booth next to mine. "I didn't tell him you were coming," said a friend of McLagan's to Costello and Costello just smiled and watched from the dark this unassuming legend of the keyboard, continuing to do things his way.