So, I like Creed now?!

Bonus Confession on this Religious Holiday

Well, I just heard the news today. It seems my life is going to change…I like Creed now. I had avoided them for 25 years. But today, and I didn’t know I was ready — to be the man that I had to be — I found myself actually listening to Creed; more than that though…actually loving the music.

Nu-Metal was a punchline. At best. In my world. I often say how glad I am to have just felt old enough to be better than it. I looked down on it, and proudly ignored it. Some of the antecedents (Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More, early Pearl Jam) were things I loved, and still dig. But the Creeds and Stainds and Limp Bizkitz and Linkin Parks of the late 90s and early 00s were all standing, waiting in the Get Fucked queue. I left them there. With arms rightly folded.

I’ve had a suspicion over the last year or two that the time is much better for nu-metal now than it ever was way back then. And I’ve heard bits and pieces from the wider canon and figured it wasn’t so bad. An Altar Bridge intro here, an altered bridge or a P.O.D chorus there, a bit of Drowning Pool, and not a lot of Korn.

When all of that music was getting its first airing, I was a smarmy prick getting free copies of the CDs and cracking myself up writing 150 words dismissing them, quick-smart. Or at least one of those two things. I didn’t do a lot of listening to the work, I just knew it wasn’t my thing.

And Creed, like Nickelback, and, um, the Feelers, drew a special kind of hatred. They were just unliked by critics. Ignored. Or pulled apart for sport.

I’ve been sharing the Creed song Higher as sound bite for some of my Instagram posts. I’ve been doing this as a dumb gag. Some sort of in-joke I’m having with myself. And it’s been seeping in all the while. The song — a banger!

I guess it’s all been leading up to this moment really…

You don’t ever know you’re having a religious epiphany or moment of clarity until you’re in that moment. I once interviewed a priest. He told me he sat up one Christmas Eve, and was watching the telly late at night when a light hit him. That was his conversion. He had not been drinking. He had not really been seeking religion. But he knew he was missing something in his life. That was the moment he found it.

I interviewed Joe Walsh. He told me about the day that he found his peace against the raging alcoholism that had taken over his life in the wake of losing a child. There he was in Gisborne, New Zealand. He had basically joined the band Herbs. They had helped him through a lost period in his life.

And just this morning. There I was. On the ferry across Auckland’s harbour. Listening, on a whim, finally, to Creed. Their greatest hits…I felt like I was alive. For the very first time.

Where else, but in the shallower waters as we were about to dock for Waiheke. The place where blind men see. Let’s go there. Let’s ask if we can stay.

The iridescence of the water. My best girl by my side. Work in the sent items for a few more days at least, nothing rushing toward the inbox. Smiling faces starting their holidays. I saw a young woman with her very elderly parents. She helped them one by one across the little bridge and onto dry land. I saw a proud dad, his tiny son on his shoulders. Both of them beaming. People were running towards the buses to head for fun. People were being approached by taxi drivers with clipboards. It was business. But it was happiness too.

I saw all of this. And in my ears I was hearing

With arms wide open under the sunlight
Welcome to this place, I'll show you everything
With arms wide open, now everything has changed
I'll show you love, I'll show you everything
With arms wide open

Waiheke. Where the last of the mad, local ferals are being squeezed out financially and philosophically by the greedy Auckland swine that wine and dine on the Island every other weekend in second homes that hide in trusts. Where Big Smoke money wafts and puffs up the arse of the island’s laidback hopes and lazy dreams. Waiheke, on a beautiful day there might be nowhere better.

And today I felt especially welcomed to this place. With its arms and mine wide fucking open eh.

Religious epiphanies and moments of clarity happen to you when they happen. You only know when you are in them. As they are happening. You were a different person before. You’re forever changed after.

I like Creed now. I never knew this. I probably never wanted this. I certainly could not have predicted it.

Happy Easter, one and all.