I believe in live music

Most months, this column pulls back the curtain on what it takes to run MCPA. I try to give a glimpse into how a community performing arts center works. This time, I'm pulling the curtain back a little further because at the heart of this work is something deeply personal for me: the power of live music. There are moments at a live concert when everything else just drops away. The emails, the stress, the endless mental list of things waiting for tomorrow. For a few hours, the only things that matter are the songs and people around me. Thousands of strangers singing the same song at the top of their lungs somehow feels like community. Live music does that. It pulls me out of my own head. A few weeks ago I was in Las Vegas and went to see Def Leppard. If you know me, you know most of my current listening lives somewhere in the folk and Americana universe. But I'm an 80s girl at heart and grew up on hair metal, so this concert felt less like a musical detour and more like returning to my roots. But the moment the lights went down and the first notes hit, the nostalgia I felt for the band wasn't what stood out. It was the energy in the room. The arena exploded. Everyone knew every word. Complete strangers were high fiving during the guitar solos. It was pure joy. And I found myself thinking, this is why I do what I do. Live performance creates something that simply does not exist anywhere else. It is not a recording or a video. It is not something you scroll past on your phone. It is real, shared, and happening only once. Every show is a small moment in time that will never happen in exactly the same way again. That shared experience matters. It reminds us we are part of something bigger than our daily routines and worries. It is also, frankly, good for the soul. There is a particular kind of happiness I feel standing in a room with other people while music fills the space. When an artist plays a song that hits something inside me that I didn't even realize needed to be heard that night, I feel it in my chest. For a couple of hours, I'm not thinking about the news or work or the million little stresses of modern life. I'm just there. That feeling is a big part of why I care so deeply about the work we do at MCPA. Every show that comes through our doors has the potential to give someone that same moment of escape, connection, or joy. Sometimes it's a Broadway touring show where the audience leaps to their feet at the finale. Sometimes it's a folk artist playing a quiet song that makes the entire room hold its breath. Sometimes it's a student walking onto a stage for the first time and realizing they belong there. All of those moments matter. In a world that often feels loud and overwhelming, the arts create spaces where people sit side by side and experience something together. No arguments. No comment sections. Just a room full of human beings sharing the same moment. So yes, I will happily go from a quiet acoustic songwriter one night to a Def Leppard arena show the next. Because in the end, it isn't really about the genre. It's about the feeling. And if we are doing our jobs well at MCPA, that feeling happens here every single week. Heather J. Clow is the Executive Director of Marathon Center for Performing Arts. She can be reached at hclow@mcpa.org.