My Drug Of Choice

It starts months beforehand, when the tour is announced. You buy tickets. It goes back into hibernation, waking slightly now and then as the date gets closer, when you are reminded, either by a song on the radio, an ad in the paper, an equally excited friend.

Sometimes you can’t sleep the night before. Or maybe, if you wake up early, a few hours before your alarm would normally wake you, you just won’t go back to sleep. You can’t say exactly why you’re up, it could be you’re not even thinking about the show that night. But once you remember it, you understand.

Maybe that day you go to work, or school, like any other day. Except not quite like any other day. You watch the clock a little more than normal. You’re even more eager to leave than on a typical day. But maybe you have the day off. You might play golf, or lounge in front of the TV, or go swimming, or sleep in. Maybe you’re traveling, in which case virtually the whole day is devoted to the show.

I’ve played golf the day of concerts, I’ve gone to work, I’ve waited from early hours outside the gates. I’ve driven through awful storms and waited in awful traffic jams. I will soon fly to another state mere hours before showtime. None of this effectively changes that slightly tense, breathless feeling at the top of the stomach. Whatever you do: You’re really just waiting.

Arrangements have been made, food is consumed, friends are met, and very often libations are joyously consumed. There is driving, walking, parking, walking, waiting. Yes, there are lines, there is smoke, there are even the people next to you in line who are not only wearing a shirt for the band you’re there to see, but they’re talking about the band and getting the names of songs wrong. There are people who are high, people who are drunk, friends you’d just as soon leave at the gate. Ultimately, none of it matters. You will come into close contact with hundreds of people you’ve never known before, you might introduce yourself to some of them. You might even make friends.

There’s always an opening band. Once, maybe twice in your life, this never-before-known-to-you act will actually be good, and you will have a new band to be interested in. Slightly more often, it will be a band you know and maybe even like. But most of the time it will be noise, nothing more, and you will pity the band members on stage because everyone else is ignoring them right along with you.

You have wandered, bought shirts, bought drinks, bought food, gone to the bathroom, wandered, talked, wandered. You are in your seat. House music is playing over the speakers. People on stage are setting up. If this is a band you know and love, you might recognize vital steps – the vacuuming of the stage, taping down the setlist, Nirvana’s “Nevermind” being played over the PA. Let’s be honest – you are bored. So bored. But – exquisitely bored. Exquisite because this is the boredom of anticipation. The tension ebbs and recedes inside you, then pools again.

Finally, something. Maybe it’s a song they play. Maybe you see something or someone backstage.

The lights go down. Around you, thousands of voices rise in unison. Everyone stands up. The hair on the back of your neck stands up. People all around are screaming, yelling, whistling. For a moment, there is nothing. And then you see the band, coming onto stage, smiles and waves – or maybe dramatic smoke and lighting effects. It doesn’t really matter. The feeling is the same.

There are better feelings I have known in this world. But not very many. It is this moment I am addicted to, even more than the music or any particular band. It is for this that I will fly across the country, drive across state lines, walk for miles. For this moment. When the lights go down. When the band comes out.

Showtime.