Bobby Rock

The Bobby Rock Newsletter #85 (11-19-22) - "Just Drive the Bus!"

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Hey Gang - 

Welcome back for another round! I always appreciate you guys taking a few minutes out of your day to drop in and scope out the latest. Here’s another issue with a personal touch, as I will be talking about a huge “peak performance” moment in the life of one of my great friends, Rob Mathes… and, a lesson we can all derive from it. Let’s jump!

• Back on the Road: Houston (and Oklahoma)-bound this week with Lita Ford and co. 
  
  
• "Just Drive the Bus:” A super hot tip for any aspiring peak performer, wrapped up in a story over 40 years in the making!
  
  
• Let's Give Thanks!: Another Thanksgiving Day beckons… as does a reminder that every day is “Thanksgiving" with the right perspective.
  

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Back on the Road with Lita Ford

Pic by Teddy Allison

I will be back out with the Lita Ford gang this weekend, enjoying an airport terminal Thanksgiving as we will be traveling on Thursday (of course!). Winger will be playing both of these shows with us. 

11-25-22 - Houston, TX 
Arena Theater

11-26-22 - Hinton, OK
Sugar Creek Casino

Looking forward to hitting, as always...

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Timely Wisdom for a Peak Performance:

“Just Drive the Bus”

One of my favorite areas of study is peak performance, whether we’re talking musicians, athletes, or actors. It’s the idea that one has to show up at a particular place, at a specific time, and deliver a world-class performance, often well outside of any reasonable comfort zone. 

One of the most counterintuitive realities of peak performance is this: when the stage is massive, the stakes are in orbit, and emotion for all involved is off-the-hook, we, as the performer, must proceed through the scene as “observers," with the most detached sense of calm. This is difficult, because the swirling hornet’s nest of adrenalin we are feeling on the inside is real and raw, and our human “fight or flight” responses are on high-alert. However, the emotional, reactionary fight-or-flight part of our brain—the proverbial “lizard brain”—is not where our genius flow-state resides. And in these huge moments, we wanna be all about our genius flow-state: that relaxed, laser-focused presence, where we are deeply absorbed in the moment, but not overtaken by its magnitude. Only then can we allow our preparation, protocols, and procedures to lead the way… while everyone else can feel free to get emotional. This is the key.

Here’s a beautiful case in point, regarding my dear friend of 40-plus years (and Berklee College of Music roommate), Rob Mathes...

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I don’t use the description "musical genius" very often but, for me, if anyone has earned such a title, it’s this guy. Rob Mathes is a gifted singer, guitarist, pianist, and composer with an impressive résumé of live and studio credits—as well as a serious catalog of magnificent solo records—and a world-renowned arranger/orchestrator and musical director who has worked with a staggering who’s who of artists across all genres, including: Sting, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Pavaratti, Vanessa Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Elvis Costello, Panic at The Disco, Tony Bennett, Lou Reed, Eric Clapton… and on and on it goes. He was also the Emmy award-winning musical director of the Kennedy Center Honors (dozens more credits there!) for over a decade, and has Tony and Grammy nominations, as well. Hell, the Led Zeppelin legal team even brought Rob in as their expert witness, acoustic guitar in hand, for the infamous “Stairway To Heaven” publishing rights hearing (which they won). In other words, Rob Mathes is a fucking beast! 

Rob with Sting

A perhaps lesser-known credit is a progressive jazz/fusion band called Interstate, which was something I put together post-Berklee, that included three of the best musicians I knew from the school. We had a brief, but fulfilling, run on the road and in the studio in ’83. (But that’s probably a lesser-important footnote here!)

Interstate: John Willis, Me, Rob, Boko Suzuki

A significant part of Rob’s education was his obsession with the iconic conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein, who he saw in concert some 35 times back in the eighties. Some of these most memorable performances took place at Avery Fisher Hall in NYC, as Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic there numerous times with Rob in attendance—mesmerized by the maestro. 

As the decades unfolded, Rob did his due diligence, studied intently, and put in the countless thousands of hours on his craft. Now, just a few weeks ago, as a culmination of a 40-plus year career, he had a peak experience at the 10-26-22 Gala opening of David Geffen Hall—a newly-built acoustical wonder, constructed within the outer shell of the original Avery Fisher building. And right there, essentially on the very stage where Rob watched Leonard Bernstein do his magic all those years ago, it would be Rob himself, conducting the New York Philharmonic through a handful of his own arrangements, on a night that was bookended with, you guessed it: the music of Leonard Bernstein. And I’ll say it again: Bernstein… in the very same hall where Rob watched his hero conduct the very same orchestra. (Let that sink in for a moment.)

It was two months of some of the most pressure-cooker preparations leading up to the show, with Rob enduring 14-hour work days at the desk and piano, writing little black dots on score paper. This included an ambitious, 15-minute symphonic treatment of the music from the Broadway smash, Hamilton, featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda and the original cast.

Then, there would be just one three-hour rehearsal, day-of-show, for the full ensemble, to get everything tightened up. Rob milked every second out of that time-frame to get things perfect. The stakes here were so high, in fact, that for events of this scope, they even have a “back-up” conductor in the wings in case the primary conductor (Rob) should fall ill to a medical emergency! (This was news to me.) 

Soon, rehearsal was winding down and Rob was conducting the huge ensemble through the show’s climactic moment, during the end of Bernstein’s finale to Candide, “Make Our Garden Grow." This included both the New York Philharmonic orchestra and chorus, as well as the Juilliard Preparatory Chorus—who were actually singing behind Rob, rehearsing their dramatic entrance from the back of the hall, then standing along the better length of both aisles. In the midst of this grand moment, a drizzle of emotion set in, and Rob stumbled ever so slightly through a difficult passage. He felt things lean a bit unsteady for a second, so he waived everyone silent. From there, he took a moment to collect himself as he shared with his colleagues the immensity of what he was feeling:

“My friends, you gotta understand: I watched Bernstein conduct Mahler’s Third from right back there…” he said, pointing his baton toward a darkened corner of the hall. And then he went on to describe the exact location of his seats for several other of his most memorable Bernstein experiences, in that very hall, more than three decades prior. Everyone was smiling and nodding their heads, in full appreciation of Rob’s candor. He felt their empathy and, more importantly, their respect. He then took a breath, raised his baton, and the ensemble carried on.

At the conclusion of the rehearsal mere hours before the show, Rob was scurrying about, taking all last-minute notes in the program and, understandably, feeling a bit stressed. This was arguably the most important, and perhaps most sentimental, performance of his career. Seeing his colleague in a bit of a frenzy, Andy Einhorn, the back-up conductor, walked over to him and essentially said, “Rob, I've been studying your scores and watching you lead this orchestra through rehearsal. You could not be more prepared on any level.” And then he said what Rob told me would be the most important four words he could’ve heard:

“Just drive the bus.”

And so it was, that these four words became something of a mantra for Rob throughout the evening. As emotions ebbed and flowed, and memories of Bernstein flashed in his mind, and even as Bernstein’s daughter, Jaime, introduced him to the audience before his stirring arrangement of her father’s “Take Care of This House,” Rob would think that mantra into reality, and remain a faithful observer to this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The maestro at work...

Finally, as the remaining moments of the show finale approached and Rob "steered the bus" towards the end of Bernstein’s “Make Our Garden Grow," he began conducting from an almost 360-degree perspective so the Juilliard singers could better see him. The wall-of-sound effect of all instruments and voices rang out through the hall with a majestic resonance. And at this point, he was no longer concerned about the big moment, because he had fully merged with it. Clearly, he had stayed out of his own way long enough to actually become the moment. And I’ve seen this from Rob plenty of times, as he was overtaken by his signature, impassioned physicality... in this case, just in time for an explosion of confetti to rain down on the packed house for the closing punctuations of the coda. Good God, what a show!

As the confetti falls...
Pic by Chris Lee

And yes, my friends, we have video of this very moment! For me, and in knowing the backstory, it was one of the more compelling performance moments I have seen in quite some time. Scope this:

And what a poignant, full-circle moment for my boy, who could finally exhale and, perhaps, step out of that metaphorical bus and emote at will. His work was done for the evening, and indeed, the performance was beyond peak: an enviable, yet inspiring, level to which all of us performers aspire. If only we can remember to “just drive the bus” when it’s time to master the moment.

Congrats, my brother...

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Giving Thanks!

For Thanksgiving last year, I wrote about my days volunteering at Animal Acres—a farm animal sanctuary located near Los Angeles—probably because I have so many great holiday memories connected to those times. I went on to write:

Spent quite a bit of time there over a four or five-year period, helping out around the farm and participating in a number of their various education programs. I believe one experiences a whole other dimension of understanding animals when you help to take care of them… especially “farm animals,” like cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, emus, and turkeys.

I’ve always found them to be remarkably similar to our “companion animals,” like dogs, cats, and birds, in terms of emotion, lucidity, intelligence, expressing preferences and exhibiting a powerful desire to live.

December 18, 2022, will mark 32 years since I’ve eaten a turkey or any other animal so, as you might imagine, Thanksgiving is always kind of a rough day for me, to be honest. But I always try to remember the main point of the day...

Which leads us to...

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The Gratitude Journal

I’ve more recently added a consistent gratitude component to my daily journaling practice, and I might suggest you guys try it, especially if you’re already in a steady practice of journaling. The process is super fast and easy.

You would simply write down one thing you’re grateful for in the following three key areas of your life. Here are a few examples:

Health and Wellness - (That you enjoy excellent health)

Work/Life Calling - (That you are able to earn a living doing what you love)

Relationships: Friends, Family, Loved Ones, etc. - (That you have a supportive cast of folks around you)

Again, these are just a few possible examples of a given day. Ideally, you would write about different things you’re grateful for in each of these respective realms. And as you do this every day, it brings a growing sense of appreciation for just how good you have it, and it tends to put your various “issues and struggles” into a more realistic frame. It’s powerful.

Scope it out, and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Thanks again, everybody. Connect next week!

Until then,

BR

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