I’ve been to show after show, from rap concerts to country concerts, from indie rock to folk, I love it all. I am my happiest at a live performance, there’s something therapeutic about seeing one of your favorite performers live, in a whole room of other people who love that performer as much as you. A band that I’ve seen the most is Twenty One Pilots. I’ve been listening to them since high school, because they're one of those bands that I immediately connected to.
Their music helped me a lot in high school, as cliché as it sounds, they just kept me going. They’re some of the best live performers I’ve ever seen, they definitely know how to put on a show. Sadly they've gained some popularity in the past years that has made them seem a bit more generic and less raw and real. They’re playing huge arenas, and not the general admission, personal, small concerts I used to love so much.
I still respect their music and what they've done with their careers, but they're just not the same band anymore, and they don't mean as much to me as they used to, and that’s okay. They’ve made it really far and I’m happy for them, and I wouldn't change all of the years I loved them, and saw them over and over again, for anything. Music is my outlet and they're one of the first bands to have truly given that to me. It honestly makes me sad knowing how different their music is now, and how far they are from where they used to be, which is both good and bad.
I’ll admit that when they started getting more mainstream and popular, I got a bit defensive and almost protective, as crazy as that sounds. I think I just had loved and appreciated them for so long prior to their huge “break through” that I knew what was coming, I knew that they were going to change. I knew the little general admission concert halls that I would go to would be over, I knew waiting outside of the theater for hours in zero degree weather would be a thing of the past, I knew their songs would become less personal, I knew I’d hear one song on the radio over and over again, all while there’s so many of their old (and best) songs that mainstream media will never hear.
I guess I just knew I’d have to grow up, and move on, just like them, and I wasn't ready. I appreciate every tough night that Twenty One Pilots got me through in high school, and I appreciate their dedication to music and to their fans. They showed me more about myself, God, and music, than I ever thought was possible, and I thank them for helping me get to where I am today.
“I'm just being dramatic. In fact, I’m only at it again as an addict with a pen who's addicted to the wind as it blows me back and forth, bind less, spineless, and pretend. Of course I'll be here again. See you tomorrow, but it's the end of today, end of my ways, as a walking denial my trial was filed as a crazy suicidal head case. But you specialize in dying you hear me screaming, Father. And I'm lying here just crying, so wash me with your water.”
