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Songs that saved us, Kill Hannah's 2 day New Heart For Christmas
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The weekend drew to a close and I still feeling the nip of Chicago’s winter’s harsh bite in my bones. I can’t get warm, it hurts to breathe-chest getting raspy; I blink and my eyelids still burn from standing in lines of meet and greets and after parties, shows.
This is the winter of Mat Devine’s writing.
Perhaps you’ve seen the unbundled masses this weekend spilling into the streets despite the blizzard and freezing rain from airports and train stations from every corner of the globe, many without coats- to experience the climate that Kill Hannah writes about in their lyrics for their annual New Heart for Christmas Winter Weekend taking place at Subterranean and Metro with stops off for meet and greet at Debonair Social Club sponsored by The Chicago Suicide Club and The Kill Hannah Kollective. For two days, the world at least locally was stopped, and everything was Kill Hannah.
Stories in line ranged from quitting jobs to be in the 400 amassed for the “super fan show” Dec 19, and cancelled and detoured flights dumping those from as far as the UK into O’Hare with just enough time to find a spot on the floor or a balcony rail to cling to the official night of New Heart on Dec 20th.
The shows were offered in a two day pass package including skip the line, after party accommodations, meet and greet, and an autographed DVD by Sleepnever.com documenting the first month of the Hope For the Hopeless world tour, or just a single ticket for the second night.
Dancing despite the pain in frost bitten limbs, this years line up treated the devoted to Go Motion, Interpartysystem, Powerspace, and with DJ Jeremy Dawson from Shiny Toy Guns as they waited for the main event to be unveiled from behind the stage doors. It is an annual celebration of the wealth of our friendships, or love for the music, and a grim reminder of how a tragic fire in Switzerland during the European leg of the Hope for the Hopeless tour which stopped the hearts of thousands at the news, breathed new life into a band with the ability to overcome their heaviest obstacle yet, and go on to continue the pursuit of creating.
It was no secret where Kill Hannah got their lyrics as many of the out of towners, or just the locals that love the scenery under a thick blanket of snow- wandered everywhere from diners and the John Hancock building to breath in the essence of what exactly makes this local band so special. Seeing Texans coatless serenading the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier because the lyrics to KH’s “New Heart for Christmas” explained the very scenario of wandering of “Navy Pier at Christmas” and “Ferris wheel still turning although it were a popular attraction still” and descriptions of a “strange holiday” to warm any emo heart on perhaps the coldest week of the year.
The strength of the band lies in its “believers” that have been with the band through label changes, lineup switches, touring guitarists and drummers and have helped to equally inspire the band on its darkest days just as it’s thawed the lives of its fan base. It is odd to find a band that’s called so many “orphans of modern age” to its side when so many people when it comes to Kill Hannah “it was the songs that saved me.”
In my nearly a decade around the band and its fan community there is always a story of how someone was down on their luck, self destructing at the hands of drink or drug, abuse of some sort, struggling with their own demons back home and somehow the lyrics to a song or two became the lifeline to someone in need and reeled them back to where they needed to be.
I am one of those that had my moment where I was in need trying to break free of an abusive relationship when I saw the band for the first time and began to feel really empowered. It sounds stupid to say the guidance of a song could save someone but I know it set me back on track; I’ve been around to see the ministry of the band’s music.
One night in the hotel rooms with an assembled cast of new friends from Europe, Canada, and states I’ve never traveled to, we bonded over a pizza and stories of how we all got to this moment.
Where I should be putting into words where Kill Hannah has played across the globe or how to buy up some merchandise, selling the experience seems more valuable.
Supporting this act is an investment in you.
For artists of all breeds especially, the musing of vocalist Mat Devine’s journal for Fuse or a crooned lyric, or the kindness of members Greg Corner, Dan Wiese, Jonathan Radtke, and Elias Mallin; this band simply will force the creativeness out of you.
Premiering new songs “Snow Blind”, especially appropriate and “Radio,” by weekends end, the world had found two more of its favorite songs. If nothing else, this band writes as it remembers youth, as if continues to pulsate with that energy of what can only be explained as the “hopeful hopeless.” Even in the darkest lyric, Devine’s soul squeaks for you to never, never, never, give up.
I may have pneumonia now, but I would have never traded a moment of that weekend for a warm bed.
Seeing the band on stage can be described as nothing other than poetry in motion and where I haven’t even come close to saying the right words to get you out there and on your way to buying your first KH album, or putting the ticket for the first show into your hand, all I can say is that once you see them the first time, the seed is planted for a love that going to follow you to the point of obsession some day. At that moment, you will understand the idiots that left their families for Christmas to be in Chicago for a concert, those that come from so many places globally but in their hearts can only call Chicago home now after making such a connection.
Especially now in a year of financial doubt the “recessionistas” of this weekend know that despite the balance written in their check book ledger, there was just simply no other place that they could be.
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