Billy Strings

Nicole from Medford, Oregon at her 58th show tells me: “I would say I spend all my money on Billy, like to travel to see him. Like I’m not going to buy new shoes, I’m going to go see Billy.” She said it with total conviction, like it was the most logical thing, and why can’t it be? We all have a god, something we worship. A lover, a job, a religion, a salvation of any making. And who’s less crazy, Nicole or those of us who think money is going to save us? 

And for tonight I too worshiped the same god. 

“He just melts people.” 

Though I wouldn’t be traveling with my fellow Americans on to the Brisbane show the following night (most of them were going in the morning), I understood with deep reverence the way in which they lived their lives and what he meant to them. It’s not about drugs as many people outside jam band psychedelia fandom think is at the true center. No the true center is community and human emotion. I repeat: “He just melts people”. The center is a shared experience of music transmuting emotion locked in body and mind, expelling it out into the world. A musical exorcism, facilitated by one of the most talented guitarists I have had the pleasure of experiencing. “Billy saved my life.” I know this to be true for at least one of his fans, but no doubt it rings true for many others. The pit at a Billy concert is for the misfits, the people that live in the only remaining corner of true California, that live in the Oregon that is not Portland or Bend - the true Oregon, the other forgotten corners of America, and abroad, where a midwestern, guitar wielding, maniac can be your salvation, even if only for a night. 

July 17, 2025