The lights go out. The stadium grows quiet. The only visible lights are the ones of the Metlife sign on the sides of the stadium. The letters that make up the sign are probably as tall as I am, yet the audience only pays attention to the opposite, far end of the stadium. We become one mass, us eighty thousand people in the stadium, the audience for tonight’s show. Slowly, a soft humming sound emerges. The gradual sound of people clapping echoes throughout the arena like soft rain hitting the pavement. With each passing minute it becomes louder, with more people joining in as their excitement intensifies. What first sounded like a light rain now sounds like droplets pounding on the pavement. Quick flashes begin to join in; phones and cameras capture the calm and eerie moments before the show begins. They last only seconds, like lightning during a storm and my eyes follow them around the stadium. The clapping grows louder, and the flashes become more frequent. Then cheers join in. The sounds of high pitched whistles and cries ring in my ears. The feeling of anticipation moves envelopes me. A tingling sensation moves throughout my body, starting in my toes and moving towards my fingers and then my head.
After three years and four months, the moment had finally arrived.
For anyone who knows me, I am a huge Coldplay fan so when my best friend and I were able to get tickets to see our favorite band, we were ecstatic.
The xylobands around our wrists automatically light up to a bright red, uniting the audience as a sea of red takes over the stadium. A deep voice comes over the speakers, reciting Charlie Chaplin’s speech from The Great Dictator. “We all want to help one another,” he says. “Human beings are like that.” The opening song begins to play quietly in the background as a map on the screens at the front of the stage takes us across the world, eventually coming to America and for this show specifically, New Jersey. The screens go dark again and the music grows louder. The anticipation is back, the tingling and the excitement. The music continues to grow louder and louder until it reaches its maximum.
And then in an instant, it all changes.
Colors of red, orange, and yellow confetti explode into the air as bright lasers move around the stage and above our heads. The xylobands light up and pulse to the sounds and beats of the music and the rhythms, all eighty thousand of them following the identical pattern.
In that moment nothing else matters. We are all in our own little world.
The voices of thousands of fans fill the stadium, singing in unison to our favorite songs. Vibrant color schemes paint the background screens and the stage as each song leads into another. It is this instance that I wish would never have ended.
In this moment, everything felt limitless. We were living in the moment.
What had taken so long to reach was now here; it was the moment we were waiting for. It didn’t matter if you couldn’t dance, or if you couldn’t sing. What mattered was the connection you felt with the rest of the audience. You were just one of eighty thousand people who shared the same interest in music, the same dream to come to a concert, and the same memories that will last forever.
