Heath Ledger's Final Days Among the Masses

“And then,” he recalls, “just by reasoning, and talking with myself, and then going through the typical metaphorical thing of ‘the Man’ versus ‘the Artist,’ [I thought,] the Man has fewer numbers. The masses have larger numbers. We are the sleeping giant they’re fucking terrified of, anyway.”

Faced with a stubborn crowd, the officer gives the band a choice: Do they want to quit playing, or do they want to go to jail?

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Marfa bound: Alex Ebert and the Masses on the road.

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Artistic freedom: Heath Ledger directing Ben Harper's "Morning Yearning"

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• Matt Amato
• Heath Ledger
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“We all start chanting, ‘Jail! Jail! Jail! Jail!’” Ebert says. “There’s no way that they’re going to load us all off to jail. And so, suddenly, everything was okay. The show can go on, because we had all decided that it was okay if we go to jail. No one’s going anywhere. No one makes a move for the door.”

Triumphant, the band kicks into their song “Home,” a duet between Ebert and Castrinos, with the chant-along chorus, “Home is wherever I’m with you.” The room rejoices.

“I didn’t know anything about the band," festival director Lambaria says, a tone of confused wonder in her voice. “I’d heard maybe 30 seconds of them on audio clips. But all I know is something happened that night. Something really magical. I mean, my three best friends next to me, who had never heard the band before either, cried during the show. There was spirit in that room. I don’t know what it was, but something was released that night. Something profound happened.”

“It gives me chills just thinking about it,” Ebert says. “People were crying, and that was exactly what it felt like from onstage. But it’s so hard to explain.” He puts his hands together, trying to capture the feeling nonverbally, and then fans them apart. “It was like ... it was like ... bursting into light. I don’t know. It’s something I never ever experienced in my life before. Ever. Not even close.”

For all the members of the Masses in the room, the night, and the trip to Marfa, becomes a sort of affirmation, some nod that everything works itself out, and that money, or lack thereof, isn’t the point, nor is the presence of a Big Name Celebrity on their masthead.

“It was definitely a feeling of, ‘The spirit is alive,’” Amato says, “‘and the beat goes on.’”