Going to Concerts

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It's just an instant gut reaction, that I got
I know I never ever felt like this before
I don't know what to do but then that's nothing new
Stuck between hell and high water I need a cure to make it through

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from "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai

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If I had to explain what a concert felt like to someone who had never experienced one, I’d say this:

Concerts feel like freedom. They feel like anticipation and adrenaline and connection and air. If you’re lucky, they feel like being the closest you’ll ever be to your favorite artist; close enough to see their sweat bead up on their forehead as they lose themselves in their own art. It feels like losing yourself, if only for a few hours, in the wave of passionate energy that pulses through the venue. It feels like dancing like no one’s watching because everyone’s too busy dancing to watch you. It feels like literally looking good and feeling better. Maybe even feeling your best. It’s a high that requires no chemicals, a joy that requires no more than your ability to recite every lyric word for word like a true fan so everyone around you knows that you’ve been here before but you still rehearsed on the way to the concert. It feels like taking care of the people around you. It feels like the bass in the speakers is vibrating off of the bodies of the people around you so much you can feel it in your chest. It feels like screaming at the top of your lungs. It feels like crying because this time it’s different. This time it’s real. This time you’re not singing alone in the car or in the shower. This time you’re not dancing alone. This time they’re right there with you, singing along and dancing with you. This time they’ll hear how much their music meant to you, because you’ll sing so loudly and so well, they’ll wanna put YOU in the studio. You’ll sing the melody, the harmonies, the ad-libs, the background singers’ part, the guitar solo, the funky bass line, and the bridge because you know them all. You’ll scream “I LOVE YOU” and you’ll know they didn’t hear you, but they heard it. It’ll feel like it’s the greatest moment of your life. It’ll feel like a moment you’ll never want to forget. Because you won’t. You’ll smile about it for the rest of your life. Because you were there and it was real and you had fun.

And if I did tell someone all of that, they probably wouldn’t listen to the whole thing and if they did, they’d probably think I don’t do anything else with my life lmaooo.

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Honestly, y’all, I feel like concerts are really an IYKYK kind of situation. I’m having a bit of a hard time succinctly articulating my experience well, but tl;dr I’ve gone to quite a few concerts in my brief stint of teenage/young adulthood, and what I can say is that I can’t imagine a life without them.

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For context, I’ve been going to concerts my entire life. My mother would take me to Beyonce, Usher, Chris Brown, Miguel, Jennifer Hudson, and whoever else would come into town when I was a small child. Once I developed my own tastes in music beyond what Hot 107.9 would play every day before and after school, I started seeing my own favorite artists.

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The first concert I remember going to without my mama was Earl Sweatshirt’s show at the Masquerade in August 2015. I went with a friend from school cuz my mama wasn’t quiteeee ready to let her 16-year-old child go to a concert alone frfr. I remember standing in the very front to the right of the speaker on the stage. I remember having to fight to the front because both of us were under 5'2" (my first of many battles to the front of crowds). I remember jumping up and down in the chucks I had taken from my sister like two days prior. I remember screaming the lyrics to IDLSIDGO with impeccable accuracy, which was barely a 6-month-old album at the time. I remember the smile I couldn’t wipe from my face the next day.

And after that, I couldn’t stop. I went to One Music Fest the next month and discovered The Internet. I went to AfroPunk Brooklyn and AfroPunk ATL the next year and saw Big Freedia for the first time. At the latter, I probably saw the last Tyler, the Creator + Earl Sweatshirt performance…ever? The next year, I skipped my first Thanksgiving break of college to go see Tyler in Dallas (also my first solo trip ever!). Two springs later, I was taking the Keihan train to Nishishinsaibashi, Osaka, Japan to see The Internet again. Fast forward to just last month, I orchestrated an entire 30-hour operation to see OK Go in Canada.

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And I do it because my heart still races when the lights get dim. Festival or concert; arena or music hall, it doesn’t matter. As long as I’ve got room to dance, my body and spirit know it’ll be a good time.

Years have passed since that fateful August evening in 2015, but long story short, I discovered a love and a true passion that day. Though it was kinda hot and the weed smell from the crowd was overwhelming at times, a love for concerts was born in me that day that has demanded to be honored as a part of my lifestyle ever since.

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Now I’ll be frank, sustaining this pastime gets expensive and it’s changed a bit as I've aged. While there was a time when I would want desperately to be at the very front of the stage in general admission, that time has passed. Now, I’ll take a reserved seat in the front of the balcony with a nice drink any day. And seeing Tyler five times in five different states has not been cheap by any means. But I’m grateful to have been in a position in my younger days and even now to be able to honor this part of who I am and how I live.

My family doesn’t always understand it, but this isn’t for them, it’s for me. Iykyk.

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I’d also like to take this time to give a very special shoutout to Carla A. Gonzalez for being the bestest concert buddy a girl could’ve ever asked for. Y’all we went to several concerts during our tenure at Claflin, but she rode with me from Orangeburg to Greensboro AND BACK IN ONE NIGHT to see… you guessed it…Tyler lol. Sister, I am so grateful to have spent those moments with you and I can’t wait to do it again next year for Arctic Monkeyssss <3

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