Another hit of the drug: live music. Time to take a break from all that intellectual analysis and coping with the realities of techno-business revolutions. Slipped into another reality. Live rock1.
Tonight’s euphoria: Live music is empowering. Perhaps this is why, wherever I go, there it is.
Thirteen years ago, I moved to a music town by accident. I came for other reasons, but was delighted to discover I could sate my appetite for live music at several genuine venues. Clubs, or the local hockey arena, played host to awesome bands, drawing dedicated audiences of a few hundred to a few thousand fans.
Previously, my need for music was fulfilled at a grassroots level in tiny pubs and local gatherings in rural Nova Scotia. And before that, the club scene on Queen West in Toronto. And previously, the big name concerts and punk-rock clubs of a major North American city. And…
Point is, a music community, or culture, has always found me, or I found it. Wherever I went, there it was. Therefore, it must be important.
After my most recent concert experience, the glow remained. Watching a great band play their hearts out, sing till their voices wavered and fill the arena with joy and dance and singing, stayed with me.
The afterglow lingered, as it does when you find yourself with a silly smile on your face for no reason, and realizing this makes the smile bigger.
My nature is to analyze. Why does music, especially live music, do this for us? Those who want to just live the experience, go for it. I want to understand why, so I can find this joy in as many places as possible.
I get joy from understanding. It’s a things I love about music: the truths, the revelations, of the lyrics. Brilliant flashes of insight about life, humans, relationships and everything. Including fish2.
For me, it comes down to empowerment, to put it in modern social terms. Feeling ok with yourself, with your life situation, giving confidence that things are under control and headed in the right direction.
Many rock fans won’t want to sully their head-banging, power experience with sentimental reflections. Ok by me. You do you. I’m head-bang and screaming my heart out at the same show, just feeling it in my own way.
We all want to feel safe, part of a social group that shares our values, knowledgeable about the ways of life, free to celebrate life and a tiny bit decadent. Good live music (the good being in the ears of the listener) does all these things.
To quote the band, ‘everything is all right, if only for tonight.’ That is the empowerment of live, rockin’ music.
1 Saw the Glorious Sons. Not my staple hard rock, although loud and full of energy enough to satisfy the need to feel encased and embraced by that special thing that is live music. This band has the most awesome, thoughtful lyrics. The song writer has a penetrating understanding and ability to articular the sometimes desperate and sometimes loveably awkwardness of people.
2 Geeky reference to Douglas Adams’ books, which include Life, the Universe and Everything and So long, and thanks for all the Fish.