Three a.m. Thursday morning. My alarm rings loud, and I stand too quickly. My head is still swimming, my eyes webbed in broken sleep. I make my way to the chest-of-drawers and press the snooze for ten more minutes. I remember turning to see Kate still buried beneath blankets. I remember thinking, just a few more minutes of sleep. I remember my head hitting each drawer handle as I fell. I remember Kate screaming my name.

The EMT’s said it was a slight concussion brought on by, maybe, too little sleep, or too much scotch. Get some sleep, they said, and if you’re thirsty, drink. Hungry, eat. I had some OJ, and I couldn’t taste a thing.

That next day, I had no sense of smell. No taste. My vision was blurred. I said, “Kate, everything looks wet.”

“We CANNOT go tonight,” Kate said.

I said, “My hearing’s fine.”

“Tonight” was to Brooklyn’s Warsaw, for kielbasa, pierogis, and the music of The Twilight Singers.

My brother got married. Some said he never would. I believe this includes his wife (my god, I hadn’t said that yet), who, as far as I’m concerned, is about as good as they come. Proof being this: at their wedding they got us gifts, quite a few of us. Now, my brother may in fact be responsible for this, and for ours in particular, it’s likely. But, as he probably now knows, he will no longer get credit for the good stuff.

For us—two tickets to see The Twilight Singers. I know very little about The Twilight Singers, and I know slightly more about the Afghan Whigs. I know, I know. Each time I’ve gotten into some conversation regarding music in the last ten years and, somehow, the Afghan Whigs come up it’s simply a matter of time before I’m punished for my lack of appreciation. What can I say? They have slipped beneath my radar, as I’m sure many other good things have. And I understand their impatience, maybe even yours. But there’s just not enough time to hear every great record, read every great book.

“I think it’s perfect,” my brother said. “This way you can go with no idea of what to expect. No idea. It’ll be a real night out.”

What I do know—an old girlfriend used to listen to 1965 all of the time. She said it was sexy. This record did for her what Led Zeppelin does for so many other women, get her dancing. Biting her lip. I know this Greg Dulli lyric: “I’ve got a dick for a brain.” It’s on a mix my brother gave me, and Dulli makes it sound both sad and seductive. I know Mark Lanegan is touring with him, and I used to listen to Whiskey for the Holy Ghost again, and again. Down, alone, drunk and loving every second of it. Very twenties.
And I know he’s one of my brother’s favorites. I’m excited.

The doctor said I should get checked out: blood pressure, etcetera, but what really got him was not the concussion, but the fall. Do you blackout often? Diabetic? Heart palpitations? Chest pain? Drink too much?

I dropped my head.

I’m getting old. Maybe not old, I’m thirty-three, but certainly older. And I resent the forty-plus who says, “Thirty-three? You’re still a kid!”

Well, this kid apparently has sky-high triglycerides, low HDL’s, and far too much alcohol in his blood. A deadly combination, according to my doctor, that can lead to cardiac arrhythmia, which can cause blackouts or death. Very scary. And yes, very dramatic—you’ll be fine, this happens to everyone—but let me have my moment.

One more way to feel old: have dinner and a drink, on your night out, at 5 p.m. The waiters are still folding napkins. The music volume is lowered as you walk in. The hostess, though very nice, looks all of fifteen and is likely wondering if you’re looking for the nearest Sizzler. To further reduce our hip quotient, we are sitting (me, tasteless, eyes still dilated) in a lesbian bar, completely unaware, of course, until the lady-pairs start filling the tables and the waitress flirts with Kate. Looks at her like a piece of chicken. So we find ourselves becoming our parents, trying too hard. Smiling too much. Trying to fit in. We’re cool.

Alright already, what about the show, right? Well, what’s there to tell? I don’t know the record, and I don’t know the songs, so I have trouble recalling particular standouts. Except one—Kate had fallen asleep on my shoulder (what do you expect it was past eleven), and they began a hair-raising version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” So hair-raising it woke Kate and she said— Polish beer on her breath and I thought, yes, I can smell again—she said, “What is this? It’s beautiful.”

What I do remember from that night: Kate and I snuck past the VIP guard—seven feet tall, his head flat as an iron—up the stairs, and found ourselves two balcony seats. And this: Greg Dulli looked like an aging Baldwin, Lanegan like an angry and aging Will Farrell. They looked old. Or older. And my brother was right. I could sit back and not think. I could just listen. It was at times sloppy barroom rock-n-roll, and at times, inspired, sad and lovely. I watched them swagger and hold their cigarettes. I watched them clutch their mic-stands, and scream. Yes, I was tired. And yes, my cholesterol needed some work. But at times the music welled up within me, and, hell, The Twilight Singers were singing into the face of death. Into the face of back pain, growing middles, and the hard work of touring. Of drugs, drink and failed love. They were getting older before my eyes, and they weren’t afraid, and the crowd knew every word, and they knew, I’m sure, that as long as they did not leave the stage they would live forever.

Scott Cheshire is a writer who lives and works in New York.