My wife and I enjoying a rare night out. Photo from Scott Morgan and Juice Magazine.

The day after I met her, I said I was going to marry her. That’s such a dumb thing to say, but I just knew she was the one. She, however, didn’t know. I never asked, I never over-pursued, but I knew from the moment I met her that she would be the one to share all of these adult milestones: marriage, grown-up friends, houses, careers, new lives, untimely deaths, all of that. Here we are, fourteen years later, more than a third of either of our lives, and wouldn’t you know it, I was right.

I’d like to say there are things people don’t tell you about long term relationships, and that maybe I should be surprised about how life works by now, but lots of things are a straight cliche. As we get older, and with outside forces seemingly conspiring against us, our youthful exuberance gets replaced by middle-aged fatigue. We still rarely fight or even raise our voices to each other, but on the occasions where we do snip or snap at each other, it is almost legit just life beating us down. Poverty and children mean we don’t get out as much as we would like and mean that our tempers are shorter than they were. I really wanted to see Dick Prall, and I really wanted my wife to be part of it.

I would love to tell you all about Max Jury’s set. About his ability and rapport with the audience. How his performing and presentation improve with each show and help him match his gifted songwriting. I would also love to talk all about Dick Prall’s set. How he segued from some of his slower, more introspective tunes into a catchier and bounceable performance. How his overwhelming talent shined through with each lyric, grin and brow-wipe.

But here is the truth, while I paid attention when I could, and made notes here and there, the focus was on my wife and just being in love for once in my life. Not being parents, not being adults, just being two people who actually enjoy each others company. Max Jury is awesome, and Dick Prall is always incredible, but the highlight of the night was blowing five dollars on “House of the Dead”, shooting zombies and shouting things at the screen with my wife. Just two people, having fun and enjoying their time together.

I would love to get into the specifics of each performance but here is the only one that really mattered to me: Max Jury and Dick Prall provided an enjoyable evening to put my beautiful wife on my arm and smile at each other and tell stupid jokes to each other and dammit just enjoy each other. So, their performance was a complete success.