Imagine that you are a guy, and also a dude. Maybe you're a girl, or a woman. You may not have to stretch your imagination much for this exercise. You were spoken to by some albums a long time ago and now you must return to hear them played live, years later. This may not be outside of your realm of experience, but bear with me.
There you are, at a show. It's thursday night. You're tired, everyone is tired. The air and the light in the room is tired. You are propped up by caffeine and some sort of end-of-week momentum that says Just Make It, just go to this last thing then sleep in your clothes and command your body to awaken tomorrow, because it'll all be over and you'll be dead someday, but you don't wanna die tonight, and besides you bought a ticket for this show and it's there for you at will call, which phrase you've never quite grasped the meaning of. Will Call, Coat Check, Standing Room Only, Capacity Crowd; the promise of an atmosphere of bright light and soft light and crowding in, that are all part of a great, great thing.
You see some people you know, some people you have a lot to say to and some you have nothing to say to, or maybe they just don't have anything to say to you, and the two (or more) of you are caught in a reflexive vortex of speakinglessness. Some animated conversation takes place. Everyone looks at their phone all the time. You look at your phone. Your friend's band is halfway through their set, and you always enjoy watching them, and you do watch. You watch them play through the lens, the literal lens of people taking pictures of them with their phones. I was going to do it, but I was too busy taking pictures of absolutely everything, is what you'll say on your deathbed, and you might not necessarily regret it.
The band takes the stage, you saw this band play for the first time probably eighteen years ago, and they don't look a day over 40. Haha. No but they are remarkably well-preserved, three real-live Jurassic Park insects, and you wonder if you are, or will be, as well-preserved. They play everything, front to back, and you sway, and a small part of you is saying you still have a chance. You think about going to work and how you hate it there but you do it anyway. You think about the people that have gone through your life and you try not to cry, about how you haven't slept in days, you put your arms around yourself, you deal with it, and you realize you'll be just fine. Class dismissed.
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