Friendship is the Litmus

I have been close friends with the members of an Austin based band, Full Service, for many years. The guys are simply great. They are certified geniuses (they have the diplomas to prove it), they are all super athletic (they have the physiques to prove it), they make incredible music (they have a string of great albums to prove it), and they are simply genuine, great guys (and they have a large supportive friend group to prove it). It's this latter of these attributes I want to address.

Due to my touring and their touring it had been a couple years since I've had the chance to hang with Full Service.....until yesterday.
Man it was such a needed reunion. We biked around Austin. We swam in the creek. We had fun.

Well in addition to just hanging out with me, they decided it'd be cool to host a house concert for me and invite all their friends since I was in town.

I was excited to get to see Full Service again but I was also excited to play their party. The guys of Full Service always do things right. I had no doubt the show would be great.

It exceeded my expectations.

Even though they had just gotten off tour themselves, Full Service hustled and worked to turn their back yard into a cool music venue. Then they reminded all their friends to come see the show.

Their friends came out in a remarkable numbers for a Tuesday night. They all sat there and quietly listened but still interacted with me and clapped when appropriate. It was an incredible show for me. They seemed to enjoy themselves too.
(it was a "listening room" enviornment that epitomizes what I wrote about in the post : http://ericerdmanmusic.blogspot.com/2012/08/songs-arent-as-strong-as-you-may-think.html )

But the overwhelming show and turnout made me think about friends.

I had of course already thought plenty about how fortunate I am to have friends like Full Service that would go out their way and work so hard to accommodate me.

But during the show I thought about friendship from a different angle.

Is there a better indicator of how a person has lived their life than the quality of their friends?

I think not. And although it isn't surprising to me that the guys of Full Service would have great friends, the amount of quality people they were able to gather on short notice to watch me play proves to me ......they have been living right.

Sure the guys of Full Service have been friends of mine for years. We have had plenty of gigs together, time together on the road. They have visited my house in Mobile.

But what about all these house concert guests tonight?

These people had never heard of me. These people came simply because Full Service asked them to.

Once there, these strangers to me were genuinely nice and welcoming. They went out of their way to make me feel at home. They listened to my stories and songs intently.

When I was done performing I met all the folks that had been listening. They were all so nice and interesting I hated for the night to end because I wanted to hang with them more.

Seeing how authentically kind these people were made me even more proud to call the guys of Full Service my brothers.

There is no way to amass such a quality friend group without being quality people.

The fact Full Service shared their friend group with me for a night reminded me of how giving and friendly they are. But that fact that they have built such a quality group of friends tells me so much more about them.

Well done, boys.

And Thank you.