I listen to so much music that playlist attrition is a natural consequence. I get tired of songs eventually and clear them out to make room for other, newer, more exciting ones.
But there are a few songs that are exceptions, that are timeless enough to me that they stick on my playlists for years. Howie Day’s Collide is one of those songs. Five years after it originally landed on my iPod, back when I was 13 and my favorite genre of music was whatever was on the radio, the lyrics still speak to me.
“Even the best fall down sometimes, even the stars refuse to shine, out of the doubt that fills my mind, I somehow find you and I collide.”
Through middle school and high school and now college, those words have been with me. So when I saw Howie Day was coming to The Ark, I knew I had to go.
Day hasn’t released an album since 2015 because he spends so much time touring. I haven’t seen him in concert before, but he’s known for his innovative live arrangements and instrumentation, something that should play well at an intimate venue like The Ark.
Day isn’t the traditional folk artist usually associated with The Ark. Instead, his music is emotional acoustic guitar-based pop rock, similar to that of bands like The Fray. If folk isn’t really your thing but you want a fairly inexpensive local concert at a great venue, he’s worth checking out.
Howie Day comes to The Ark with opening act Shane Piasecki, another acoustic pop singer-songwriter, this Sunday, December 3, at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $20 at The Ark, at the Michigan Union Ticket Office, or online at theark.org.
