Wednesday, October 18 John-Allison Weiss LIVE at Grog Shop with Crash Nebula, Molly O'Malley, and The Heavy Forgiveness  Doors 7 p.m. | Showtime 8 p.m. $15 adv | $17 dos + $3 at door if under 21 ALL AGES We cannot help where we start the journey of our life’s grand purpose. For some, that’s a road we walk from birth to oblivion that never deviates down life’s many differing pathways. For John-Allison Weiss, that journey is taking it’s time navigating an endless array of crossroads, the result of a handful of years that have held many changes in Weiss’s life. The construct of change, like time itself, is inescapable. It’s how we navigate the change that defines us, it’s what Weiss is pondering with their first album in 7 years, The Long Way. Over 11 songs, Weiss embraces the spirit of rebirth born of change, the opportunity to sit perfectly still with oneself and enquire to the deepest needs of your spirit. We are so rarely afforded the opportunity of introspection and rarer still equipped to process what information we find, but on The Long Way Weiss deftly manages to channel deep change into exultant arrival. Weiss has long been a master of pop hooks that weave in and out of meditative lyrics. From the opening strums of “Dust Storm” Weiss builds to the edge of a crescendo and lets us hang there, letting us know we might at any second plummet over but instilling within us a deep trust that when we do, the landing will be worth the fall. “Different Now” is a tender goodbye to a love that has lost its heart, a churning guitar dancing with a driving synth that feels at times like the innumerable headlights of the road out of town are the only thing left in this world.