Over Sunday evening coffee, I sat and tried to think, offhand, of all the Ted Leo & the Pharmacists shows I’ve seen. I came up with 13*, and found that a good number of them are also personal mile markers. For example: 

•  The first of these was my first rock show, period. It was also a date with my high school sweetheart Hannah, who turned me on to Leo and loads more of the music I would come to hold dear. She also gave Art Sorority for Girls its name.
• Hannah and I saw the band three more times together: once at the Village Vanguard (for Valentine’s Day), once at the Bowery Ballroom (awkward, since we’d broken up a month earlier), and once at South Street Seaport (really fun, since we’d finally become friends again).
• I spent the summer of 2005 studying abroad in Paris. My last day there I met a stunningly beautiful girl from Bordeaux, who was traveling with a guy I’d later learn was her boyfriend. I chatted them up, and we exchanged address info for the heck of it. Three weeks later, I was back at South Street Seaport (Leo has played a free show there every summer for ten years). As I waited for the opening act to start, a girl in a track jacket sat down a few rows ahead of me. When she turned around to scope out the crowd, we locked eyes. It was her. (No rom-com ending: We just talked a lot about music, watched the show, and said our goodbyes. But we’ve kept in touch.)

On another note: I’ve been working in music media since early 2009. Between that and all his free gigs, I haven’t had to pay to see Leo in years. Last night ended that in the best way: an all-ages benefit for community outreach and immigrant rights, held in a church basement, with a discount if you brought canned goods to donate. And it was a fierce performance, aided in no small part by the energy of the crowd. There’s basically nothing I want to do more right now than play, see and facilitate shows like this one.

*Missing from the photo: TL’s set at the 2003 Siren Festival, a face-melter even though dude hadn’t written half his best songs yet.