Memorial Day weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, Florida. As a girl who doesn't normally listen to EDM music, I was a little nervous about what the weekend would hold for me — I was really only attending for the sake of the experience. However, the festival ended up being practically life-changing for me in more ways than one.
I have always held the art of music in a high regard, the way that it speaks the emotions you cannot find the words for yourself and the therapeutic way in which it soothes the soul with its rhythm and tones. However, it wasn't until this particular weekend that I really saw the way it is able to unite a group of people in a way that nothing else can.
As a festival that has almost 50,000 people in attendance, it is a given that the crowd it draws is extremely diverse. We all came from different places, different beliefs, different stories, but with the power of the music in front of us, none of those differences mattered. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold. I struck up conversation with people I might not normally see myself having much in common with, and the outcome was eye-opening. The cordial atmosphere and welcoming vibes coming from every person there was apparent as soon as you walked through the entrance, and only intensified the closer you got to the stage.
In a society loaded with so many controversies and issues that drive us apart from one another, to see the way music is able to unite us all together was an incredible experience. People are constantly looking for the key to a peaceful society, and I think that music may be a good place to start.
Music is a universal language understood among all cultures and people. Our society is attached to music without even realizing it sometimes — turning on the radio in the car is practically second nature, and we have become so used to the background music in our favorite TV shows and movies that we often forget it is even playing at all. We turn to music to comfort us, excite us and relate to us more than we turn to people to do the same. Music is the one thing that this world would be absolutely unbearable without, so why haven't we used that to our advantage?
Instead of ripping each other apart because of our differences, let's start drawing together through what makes us similar. The art of music is something that we all cherish, whether everyone knows that about themselves or not. In the face of a crisis, instead of picking up our guns, maybe we should pick up a handful of Kandi bracelets and make our way to the nearest music festival instead.
