Robot Rock

I would never issue a formal complaint, but sometimes there is just too much good music to see in New York. Lately I feel especially spoiled. Seeing live music, which although never truly a rare occurrence in my life, used to hold more significance. A concert was something special, even if it didn’t completely blow me away. My standards have since risen. Not to say that it takes more to impress me musically, but it takes more to genuinely affect me.

While listening to music is oftentimes a highly individualistic sort of activity, witnessing a live show fosters (or should at least encourage) a more communal feel. A concert is such a fleeting thing; a single performance can happen only once and can never be wholly recreated. This is what makes it real. This is what makes it exciting. This is partly what binds us as concertgoers. To be able to say “I was there too!” To be able to gush over that same song transition or that face-melting Malkmus solo. Or to be equally speechless as those other 12,000 people who crowded into that baseball diamond on a rainy August night for Daft Punk.

This was no ordinary concert. This was a return to the ritual nature of music. I was part of something larger than myself – something too big to ever fully comprehend. Yet at the time, it didn’t matter what was happening, I was reassured just to know that it was happening at all. My grip on reality was temporarily severed, something that doesn’t happen quite often enough.

Imagine being transported, to a place outside of yourself, to a place you never knew existed but always hoped did. It felt scary and safe at the same time. It felt like it might feel to die dreaming. Just two masked humans atop a burning pyramid of light doing this, whatever this was, to a crowd of thousands. Most of the time I didn’t even know how to respond to what was going on in front of me. Overly stimulated and slightly confused, I was left looking like a possessed fool with a maniacal grin plastered across the face. Peering deeper than usual into a friends’ eyes and recognizing that same look of horrified amazement, I knew there was no choice but to surrender. And even though it is times like these we feel the least in control, these are the moments when we experience that overwhelming sense of self, of living.