Believers.

I was listening to the opening track titled The Stone on Dave Matthews Band's most recent live release, Weekend on the Rocks. The song, taken a certain way, has very strong religous connotations of a Christian bent. But it could also be about marriage. Or just a plea for help during troubled times. My own take is that the religous connotations are meant to highlight the author's (Dave) own questions about spirituality and to use those questions as a backdrop for the more tangible matters of the heart. It's about realizing you can spend all day thinking about God, but at a certain point it keeps you from really living and so finally the speaker ask her the question thats keeping him troubled. Will you marry me?

It's fitting then that during solo live renditions of the song a cover of Elvis's Fools Rush In is tacked on. You know the one...

Wise men say
Only fools rush in
But I can't help falling in love with you

Shall I stay
Would it be a sin?
Cause' I can't help falling in love with you...

Wise men? Sin? Love? Talk about a song that has both emotional and spiritual elements.

Back at the The Stone the band is jamming, Dave is mummbling and he's singing the same line over and over, with each time growing softer "let it all pour out, let it all pour out, let it all pour out."

And then the crowd. It starts out innocently enough and you can really only barely hear it at first. Sounds like a few small groups are singing a few lines from the Elvis song as the band jams on. But more and more people catch on and it spreads like fire.

"...only fools rush in..."
"...wise men say..."
"...would it be a sin?"

And then together:
"I can't help falling in love with you!"

Though it was sung by the crowd in a clear effective voice, the crowd has given to eruptions of self congradulatory applause. The believers push on with more singing, and the band keeps the jam going, but even softer now. The crowd seperates into many groups and continues singing many different parts of Fools Rush In. They continue seperate at least until the right moment comes and everyone is ready and all together, without any individual distinction they sing... "I can't help falling in love with you!"

Positively chilling. Widely blissful.

Euphoric.

Suddenly the band erupts with a 20 second explosion of rhythm and melody and madness. I can't but wonder to myself... Does this sound represent the big light in the sky? Is it God and heaven? Did she say yes?

Who knows? It's just music and this is just Earth.

One thing is clear, though. Believers, no matter what they believe, are the ones that keep open a path by which the arguing masses, in a thousand shades of gray, may unite colorfully into a single shared euphoria.