jive machine & ethan burns

Music, as with love, only works if you give absolutely everything you got. Anything less leaves the whole world wanting, lacking, missing the magic that could’ve been. We reject the notion that something is good enough, or sufficient, for when your heart is committed, it wants to be full. We embrace this philosophy with every FTF show, and we get jumpin-out-of-our-boots excited to host bands that do the same. Jive Machine and Ethan Burns personify this holistic approach to performance and as an audience we get to witness them digging deeper than they thought possible to give us every last bit of themselves.

Jive Machine pursues its audience with unfettered tenacity. While the bass lines and horns instantly scoop up the majority of the room, this band isn’t satisfied until all hands are out of pockets, all corners are free of the sulking and the too-cool, and each body within earshot is dancing, jiving, moving with them. They give it all and demand it all in return. They put in too much work to do it any differently, and they dare you to attempt to dismiss the fun and revelry that they offer up on a platter. They follow their music out into the room, proclaiming this is how we play, this is how we feel, this is how we live. Jive Machine knows we’ve only got so much time here and by god they’re gonna make their mark if they have to bust down every wall to do so.

It’s a wonder Ethan Burns is still walking around on two feet. Each show he turns himself inside out, roaring and raging from start to finish, and the audience is left to wonder whether this will be the song that rings so hot, or falls so heavy, that it sinks him. Burns bends ever further with emotion but never breaks as he delivers his art like a prizefighter. His performance is a full fifteen rounds, always, and the crowd quickly begins cheering his every move. We root for him because he throws himself at us with the pure faith that we will catch him and carry him to greater heights. He is the homegrown people’s champion of the Central Coast and the pride he takes in performing is matched only by the audience’s pride in carrying him off on their shoulders.

From her attic perch, Emily Dickinson recognized, ‘The heart wants what it wants.’ Music can give us so much that we’ll never be satisfied with some; like Queen, we want it all. We owe it to ourselves and to each other, and the chance at amazing is why we log all those hours practicing, traveling, organizing, shouting from the rooftops, all for the chance to get together and share magic. We get what we give, and on May 10 we get Jive Machine and Ethan Burns. Let’s bring our best.