Let me take you back in time for a second, if you’ll allow me—to November 8, 2019. It’s a chilly Friday night on Asbury’s campus, and the old Stuce is packed to the brim with students sprawled on every surface, painting on small canvases. It’s dark except for some lights strung across the ceiling and a few spotlights picking out a lone, relatively unknown musician by the name of Jordy Searcy strumming away at the front of the room. In the corner is a little wide-eyed freshman with newly chopped hair and wrapped in a big sweater, taking it all in.
That was my first Coffee and Canvas at Asbury. Somehow, I had ended up as co-chair of the Concert Committee at Asbury as a freshman thanks to my senior friend Sydney, who wanted someone who loved concerts as much as she did to take over the position when she graduated. I had loved and listened to Jordy Searcy since high school, so when I learned that we had hired him to play at Asbury, I was over the moon. That night has remained as one of my most favorite memories as an Asburian.
Since his concert at Asbury in 2019, Jordy has put out another album (titled Love? Songs) along with a few EPs and singles. It wasn’t until this past June that Jordy released his third and longest album, this one titled Daylight. Written during the pandemic months, Daylight included songs full of questions and encapsulated those emotions felt during the loneliness of COVID that ended up speaking directly to my own feelings. Shortly after the album dropped in June, Jordy announced a tour to promote the album and you can imagine my excitement when Lexington, Kentucky was one of the first places he was visiting. I immediately bought tickets, knowing this was going to be one of those full circle moments.
Fast forward to last Monday.
A few of my fellow senior friends decided to carpool together, so we piled in Mason’s car and reminisced on the way there about the last time we all saw Jordy together and how much we’ve all changed. By the time we got to the venue, I was already sentimental enough and Jordy hadn’t even taken the stage.
As I stood there, surrounded by my some of my closest friends since the beginning of college, I thought about how time so easily slips by. Most people who were in that crowd at that 2019 Coffee and Canvas were gone, graduated, and moved away. The crowd this time was mostly underclassmen and surprisingly, a lot of high schoolers, including my younger brother and his friend group. Not only was it a full circle moment, but also a “worlds-collide” moment, especially as my best friends met his best friends, all there screaming along to the same songs as Jordy took the stage.
From Jordy’s slow songs like “Molly” and “Explaining Jesus” to his more high-powered songs like “Why Can’t We Be Friends?,” he and his small band brought the energy to the crowded room in the Burl. One of the most intimate and special moments was undoubtedly his show tradition of going into the midst of crowd to play his quieter songs—except this time, he FaceTimed his girlfriend in to play her the love songs he had recently written for her. He then transitioned into an acapella version of the classic hymn “Amazing Grace” and invited the crowd to sing along.
With our voices raised and echoing around the venue, I couldn’t help but get a bit choked up. It’s hard to believe that the last time we sang these songs together, we were only just starting our college careers but now, we’re filling out our graduation applications. I think it was then that I finally fully understood my favorite Jordy Searcy song, “Love & War In Your Twenties”. In it, he says “Your twenties are for hours and hours pretending / we have plans and places we should visit / but everybody knows your twenties are for wasting time.” When I saw him perform this the first time as an eighteen-year-old, I loved it but now it actually makes sense to me as a twenty-one-year-old–we’re all about to go into the real world and start the rest our lives without each other. We have all these plans for our futures and ambitions to achieve our dream careers but as I stood there singing, I wanted to stay in college a little bit longer. Don’t get me wrong—my senioritis is bad. I cannot wait to leave college and begin my life, but it was moments like Monday night that reminded me to not wish the time away. Like Jordy sings in “Favorite Days”: “Time isn’t on our side / Someday we’ll be polaroids, but / these are my favorite days.”