Concerts as Community — or Remembering Rock Stars
Thinking about how one moment changes it all — the music stops and the voices lift the air out of silence. Watching legends of bone and string, tomorrow to be dust, to fade while their vocals, their testaments kept sacred through vinyl pressings, immortalized on phone video. Their scriptures, recited by one or one hundred thousand, memorialized by candlelight, driven on passing roads, echoing from the backseat off the cassette tape in a now junked car. Heard on accident, snippets in changing stations, skipping past it on CDs. Never placing the lyrics, never catching the beat — a feeling when the service has ended, a moment of recognition that the songs wouldn’t play that same, you and the mass won’t cross paths. United at that moment by something that deemed to be true, demanded attention, held its name when spoken, and called out yours when you couldn’t hear.
Reminders that things do not last forever are all around us. Without playing too much into clichés, we can mark the passing of seasons, the falling of the leaves, the fading of the sunset. Statutes fade and fall, tithes paid to be lost, and long faded. Such sometimes is the way of the rock star.
It’s hard not to make something that’s universal so personal. The passing of Prince, David Bowie, and now Neil Peart all sent resonating shockwaves through myself and my being. Legends that lived connecting millions and sang or preformed timeless songs. Growing up on their music through local radio stations and paternal required listening — swept away by fantastical lyrics, hefty bass, and guitar solos, usually taking up more minutes than air-play would allow, and a drumbeat that pounded with my heart. Sometimes the word untouchable enters the mind, despite how many times history has countered that thought.
My first concert was Rush. Expecting nothing, I wore jeans and a tee-shirt, with a sweatshirt knowing that Jones Beach gets cold at night as the stars rise with the moon over the stage. Entering into a community I had only heard about, only listened to their music in my room, or in the backseat of the family’s car. What transpired the next few hours would be nothing short of a wonder. Hearing the notes lift off the stage and into the air, moving the crowd to sing along, to sway with the wind coming from the waves. The excitement stayed throughout the experience, lifting with the ebbs and flows of the songs until the last note played, echoing through my heart. Leaving the place where the players made magic, feeling my heart start to beat on its own, slowing down to catch itself.
It is edging on the ledge of infinity, imaging that those that exist on the concert stage will live forever, to sing their songs with personal connections, to play the beats that soundtracked long car rides or placed on a breakup mixtape. Notes forever pressed in vinyl to be played into the cosmos as the night fades away. Remembering those who had the power to unite, to lift above the self, and to bring together those in unity, if only for a night.
The treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect
The way you live, the gifts that you give
In the fullness of time
It’s the only return that you expectThe future disappears into memory
With only a moment between
Forever dwells in that moment
Hope is what remains to be seen
Rush, — The Garden
October 22, 2012 — First Semester Sophomore Year, High School
Today was a pretty good day with a fantastic ending, I guess it’s easy to say that everyone one wants to have one infinite moment in their life. Something that makes them, at least just for a moment, forget the impending doom and death and sadness of their lives and freeze in a moment when time could stop, unnoticed to all the participants. I finally had that moment. During the Clockwork Angels tour (Barclays Center, Rush) Rush started playing Spirit of the Radio. And there’s a break in the song where Geddy’s vocals stop and you hear Alex on guitar and Neil on drums and everyone started clapping to the beat. And it was in the moment I felt infinite. It no longer mattered who was tired, who was the bigger fan, and who could scream the loudest. But watching those hands come together in a perfect motion with the electric feelings running through my veins, I felt like nothing could hurt anymore.