I think it was Dave Grohl who said that a concert was like going to church.
I’ve been taken along this line of thought by the report of a “riot” in Chili this week during a Metallica concert before more than 50,000 fans. The reason for whatever happened are what they are. The word “riot” has long been associated with music, sometimes to discredit the music and its fans, sometimes to describe an actual eruption in the audience, which can build like a pebble thrown into a lake. When something unexpected happens in a crowd of 50,000 who have nowhere to go, no-way to escape, a pebble can cause a tsunami.
The word “riot” is also not far away from “fervour”, the state fans can be in when they go to a concert to see their heroes, when you go to “church” surrounded by other “believers”. That’s why it’s like going to church. You’re in a room with people who share your passion. It doesn’t matter (much) that most of that 50,000 won’t actually see what’s on stage with any personal perspective. Often you’ll witness what there is to witness thanks to giant video screens. You might as well be at home. But no, you’re “there”, in the midst of it. The music you love is washing over you. The believers alongside you are jumping and screaming and singing along from the same prayer book. You’re all breathing the same air, under the same sky or surrounded by the same four walls. It’s a memory you take away with you for when, you next listen to that music the way you found it, on your own. You were there.
We don’t share music enough any more. We need these public fixes – even though sometimes it’s a personal affront when you discover that what you love is also loved by so many others. Strangers. It’s affirmation but it can take away from of the thrill.
Before computers and iPods we shared music a lot more. We heard something that moved us somewhere somehow, and became its consumers, and in our excitement shared it with others, by intention or otherwise. We gathered around speakers, or the speakers spilled out our windows or through our walls to others. Another pebble! Another potential tsunami! But a virtual one, not a physical one.
Now, as you sit on a train or a bus opposite someone listening to music with their earplugs attached, how will you find out what they’re tuned into? Today we’re much more inclined to keep our religion to ourselves. And then sometimes we find suddenly ourselves part of a congregation of 50,000.
What I’m listening to: Corinne Bailey Rae (the Sea), Feist (The Reminder), Radiohead (The Bends)
ED SAID 