My senior year of high school my mom managed to find me tickets to a concert in Nashville with one of my favorite bands of all time– Twenty One Pilots. This was my first music concert I ever planned to go to, and I would have been perfectly excited for it except for the fact that it was during the school week. I was extremely anxious in leaving my high school studies to go to this concert, and made sure to make it last as short of a time as possible so that I wouldn’t miss a thing. I also planned a college trip during that time to keep myself academically in check during the time I was supposed to be having a trip to myself. It was a rough semester for me; I was working tirelessly on my IB assessments and keeping up with 7 IB classes at once, often pulling late nights to finish all my work on time. On top of that, I was doing a play which added more pressure upon me to succeed. This concert was not well planned, but I went because it was a gift from a family friend. Leading up to this event and during my time there, I would nonstop worry because I constantly thought that I was doing something very wrong by taking this day from school to go this concert that I was given tickets to. As much as my mom and my friend would try to get me to calm down and enjoy the experience, my anxiety of missing material in class and taking a spontaneous break from school consumed me. However, once I got to the concert, something changed. As my favorite band approached the stage, and all my favorite songs were being played, and I heard the enchanting rhythm of everyone in the same auditorium singing to the same lyrics, all my worries went away. I got lost in the music that was emphasized by over a thousand voices singing as a united voice, all to the band on stage who was there in the flesh. All these factors at once was truly overwhelming in the greatest sense of the word. Previously, my anxiety consumed me. And now the experience consumed the anxiety. I’m not a very spiritual person, but concerts are truly magical in their effect on the body, and soul. There’s something very special about them.
Since that concert almost a year ago, I have been to 6 other music events and festivals and seen 21 other bands live. Every single one, no matter what problems I have going into the concert, I always end up forgetting about them the second the artist comes on stage. Concerts seem to work on a different plane of reality where everyone is completely manic, and issues don’t seem to be a reoccurring theme. I don’t think I fully comprehended the meaning of “escapism” until I started going to concerts.
Everyone loses themselves in the name of music under the same song; it brings together so many people from so many different backgrounds, and it doesn’t even matter what differences may separate us, because we all are united under the same goal of escapism. None of us want to be interrupted from this blissful plane of existence, and it builds a sense of empathy between strangers in such a beautiful way in which we all seem to develop a mutual understanding of each other akin to friendship. At Warped Tour, you will witness an atmosphere in which everyone will go absolutely wild to all their favorite hardcore/punk bands through head banging and mosh pits, but if one person falls or gets hurt at one person’s mistake, you will see at least one person going up to them and seeing if they are okay and pick them up before continuing to rock out again. You will also never find a better environment to strike up a conversation than at Hangoutfest in Gulf Shores, Alabama, where I have been able to talk to so many people with ease regardless of my lack of prior knowledge about them beforehand. This attitude is resembled by their motto “Be Nice or Go Home!” It’s this sense of camaraderie that live music creates that allows everyone to have the ability to forget all their problems and have the best experience possible.
As I go through my first year of college, I will encounter more and more difficulties that I haven’t experienced before that will make me stronger as I muscle through them. However, going to concerts is a healthy form of catharsis that I will continue to do in order to let go of reality and do what truly makes me happy in life.
