At my age, the most difficult aspect of life that I face is trying to recognize the difference between what is real in life and what is not. This struggle can keep me guarded so that I experience nothing in life because I want to remain safe. Often, I was left to myself, drowning out the world with rock music on full volume. But even this private connection to music wasn’t truly real. Then one day at a local bar, Strummers, two bands that I listened to on my own, were playing. Although I went to see the two bands, The Mowgli’s and Hunter Hunted, alone, the experience that I was confronted with was the exact real moment that I was searching for.

At this show, I was surrounded by strangers but somehow I felt connected to each one of them through the music. That night I made a random connection with a woman my age, who would later become a close friend, and I joined a community that I truly felt that I belonged to. I’ve created many friendships, like this, through all the concerts that I have attended since that night. I asked four of those friends, Chloe, Noe, Rhyann and Macy, if they felt the same connection to strangers that I did, and they all agreed that creating friendships did seem easier with strangers when at a concert. All four of them were in consensus that there is something special about being surrounded by people who listen to the same music as yourself.

Every time I go to a show, I feel the same way around all the other people. I feel as though I know them and that they know me. My only explanation for this feeling is that through our own private connections to the bands that we are seeing, we are able to form an understanding for one another through a reflection of ourselves. If the music helps a person cope with a problem, then maybe we are all at the same show because we are all coping with a similar problem and a community of acceptance is created.

But even though I feel as though I am apart of a larger community when I attend these concerts, I feel as though something else is motivating me to continue my obsession of seeing live music. Sure, music played through a device helped me to deal with daily life but live music seemed to fulfill me. Noe described being at a concert as “feeling timeless”. He went on to describe his experience as “everything disappearing – all the worries, commitments, and every bad thing goes away. The music is the only thing that you feel”. Noe’s description might make live music seem like a drug that numbs everything else into nonexistence, but Chloe would disagree because she described the feeling during a concert as being “enthralled, involved, and overwhelmed”. During a live performance of music, the experience is so real that it overwhelms all the problems that we have created in our minds prior to being at the show.

All that matters during the performance of a band you love, is the music that you’re hearing, yourself, and the actual band. You can’t hear or feel the vibration of your phone in your pocket. You can’t even hear the person talking next to you. The world is shut off and what you’re confronted with is a real moment with people that have helped you in some way with their music and they actually exist.