OK, so that title might be a little melodramatic in connection with the recent news that Prussia has decided to call it quits. These guys aren’t dying or anything. Their band is breaking up and they’re working on new projects – cool stuff from what I’ve heard so far. However, let’s admit that for those of us who had the pleasure to watch this band progress over the last 4(?) years, it’s hard not to be a little sad. Partially, this is because if you ever got the chance to see them play you’d know that it felt like you were part of something special. That feeling never went away, and I’m positive it’ll still be there, stronger than ever, for their final shows this weekend. But I guess another reason for the sadness might be how much we believed in them. Over the last year, it seemed impossible that this band that everyone held so dear in Detroit would not be equally embraced by the rest of the world (at least in the world of Indie). And yet, while that would’ve been nice for them of course, I realize it really wouldn’t matter much to me. In fact, I’m sure I’d feel a bit crazy and protective if they ended up on Conan, earning an even larger audience of screaming teenage girls.

But I’ll save the fancy speech and soliloquies (too late) for an actual writer. Here we make videos. Not always good ones, but sometimes decent ones that just never get seen. If in ten years someone were to ask me what our time and place in Detroit was like, and likewise what it was like to have a band such as Prussia making music around us, I could point to this video.

We had arranged for the band to play a few songs around the Russell Industrial Center – the freight elevator, the alleyway, the bathroom! – and that evening culminated with an intimate performance for family and friends inside the Silent Giants’ studio. Of course we had to complicate things by only using candlelight (which at the last minute meant we had to scrape together as many lanterns as we could find) so it’s a bit dark. However the outcome that evening was a Prussia show for their fans unlike any other.

Also, this has to be my absolute favorite version of this song.