The pounding music, that seems to shake you to your core, as sweaty bodies slide and collide with you, all aching to get closer to their idols, hundreds/thousands of people singing the same song for hundreds/thousand different reasons. You may be a shy quiet, reserved person, and the person next to you may be outgoing, loud, and obnoxious, but in this gig, hearing your favourite band perform the songs that mean so much to you, you are one. One with the crowd, one with the band. It’s the sort of experience you can never truly feel from a youtube clip, or a phone call from a friend, you can’t grasp that atmosphere in a photograph no matter how hard you try. You can only imagine, or recall on memories. That’s the power of gigs, it brings people together. It shows them that no matter how different and fucked up we are, in this room, right here, right now there’s a band out there that’s just like us, human and we all come together. It’s odd, recalling on past gigs, fleeting memories of being crushed against the barricade, of sweaty arms belonging to strangers wrapping themselves around me, or brushing past my cheek as the singer draws closer to the barricades. Memories of the pulsing lights, and the thudding bass. It’s rock and fucking roll. The atmosphere at gigs can be so incredible, so moving that there’s an urge to inject it right into your veins.
In a gig you’re on equal territory, sure your favourite band are up on stage, and perhaps your not in some blocked off VIP area, but at the end of the day the essence is always going to be there. In this room, listening to these songs, we’re all equal. All working for something, all listening to music as an escape from our mundane lives. Gigs shake things up, even just for a few hours. It’s madness and it’s wonderful, and if someone ever tells you that music isn’t a way of escaping life, then take them along to a gig, show them the crowd going mental. Someone in that crowd has just been dumped, another may be losing a close family member, someone in there is struggling to pay their bills, another is the subject of horrendous racist abuse, but right now they care slightly less, or perhaps they don’t care at all, nothing matters other than whether or not your favourite song is going to be played by one of your favourite bands. Music is an escape, even if you don’t have any problems, it still takes you away, to this place, this little place of comfort. No matter the music, no matter the beat. It’s an escape for us all.
Emma journals 