Do I Still Belong at a Rock Concert?

The Last Stand

I stood up at James Taylor once.

I was seventeen years old, and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. We all stood up at Pearl Jam. We all stood up at the Foo Fighters. Why shouldn’t I stand up for James Taylor?

“Sit your ass down, boys!”

That’s why.

The yeller was a gravely man, wedged in among the geriatrics lounging behind us in lawn chairs. I turned and saw his face contort into a grump, blending in with a crotchety flock of ill-tempered old farts.

It was as if every one of them had bitten into a sour apple; and we were the apple.

My friend encouraged them to stand up, but the gray hairs weren’t having it. Tensions rose — which is the polite way of saying an old man threw a beer can at me. Carolina in My Mind isn’t the sort of soundtrack that inspires a fistfight. We decided to sit.

I was heavy with defeat. An ass in the grass was the mark of a bad show; a waste of thirty dollars — when thirty dollars was all I had. How could we let those joyless sitters win?

After nearly two decades of highs and heartbreaks, an amended me is setting a course for that same old festival. Instead of James Taylor, I’m going to see Mumford & Sons. Instead of awkward teenage friends, I’m going with Claire, the woman who stole my heart — and seven-eighths of the bedsheets.

Claire wants to bring lawn chairs. “It’s a rock concert,” I said, “and we’re not seventy-three years old.”

Sometimes, I win a fight. We rode the train chairless, imitating spring chickens: no cares in this world, no kinks in our calves. As soon as we arrived at the gates I knew we made the right decision.

If you don’t have a chair or a cumbersome bag, security gives you a cursory wave of their magical wand and sends you on your way. Our line never stopped moving, a restless gaggle of whippersnappers hopping up and down at the prospect of a rock concert. The seven lines to our left sagged — a mass of wrinkles, weary eyes, and worn-out folding chairs.

Beyond the gates, we met up with friends. Sitting friends. We stayed with them through the opening act, and then we excused ourselves. “Oscar says we have to stand up at rock concerts,” Claire intoned, like a first-grader rehashing the reason why she needs to take a bath. “He says it’s because we’re not seventy-three yet.”

We forged ahead, beyond the warning signs. NO CHAIRS PAST THIS POINT.

Here the true fans stand, those who remember where they were the first time they heard Little Lion Man. The tips of my fingers went slick, my body anticipating magic. I have known my share of supernatural nights, when the mood of ten-thousand souls synchronizes, and you witness your own joy amplified across a sea of humanity. It only lasts an hour, but there are those who spend a lifetime hoping to feel that rapturous human thunder again.

I was ready to be enchanted. Then we got bumped.

The space we had carved out for ourselves was the perfect balance of personal space and proximity to the stage. At least it was — before they descended upon us. Trains of teenagers and twenty-somethings came, with their most considerable friends assigned as cowcatchers.

You can hear them click-clacking toward you. ‘Excuse me, sorry. Excuse me, sorry. Excuse me, sorry. Excuse me, sorry.’ A thousand apologies that amount to nothing more than a single proclamation:

MOVE!

If you don’t move, you get bumped. It’s entirely unfair. Their bruises will heal before the night is through. Our bodies will sport ugly purple spots until September.

Two minutes before Marcus Mumford takes the stage, a train comes to rest six inches in front of Claire’s face, treating her to an intimate display of Timmy’s neck acne. We shuffle to our left, hoping to recapture our view, only to watch as dozens of young women ascend upon the shoulders of their adoring ogres, springing to life like a field of sunflowers at first light.

Trouble is, now only the sunflowers can see. Don’t they teach these kids about Jeremy Bentham anymore? Whatever happened to the greatest good for the greatest number of people?

I didn’t ask Claire if she wanted to go on my shoulders. We know better. She doesn’t want the attention, and I don’t want an aching neck for the rest of the weekend. I can feel her silent resentment. She hates the view, and she hates her sore feet, but most of all: she hates the bastard of a boyfriend who insisted her into this situation.

This isn’t as fun as I remember.

There’s no use pretending. We belong further back. At the end of Mumford’s third song, I leaned into Claire’s ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes,” she said.

We turned away, and hand in hand, we walked out of our youth and into our middle age. Everyone we passed looked younger than us. I apologized as we brushed by, but our departure was no inconvenience to them. “Go ahead. Give up,” their eyes said. “More room for us.”

We arrived where we started, back at the lawn chairs, and I finally felt the belonging I longed for.

Were we wrapped in ecstasy, surrounded by devotees who knew the lyrics to I Will Wait better than I know the back of a bottle of Pepto Bismol? No. Instead we sang the words we happened to know and swayed in each other’s arms. We watched a great band cast their passion across the city; we just watched it on a giant screen, instead of in slivers through the shoulders of strangers.

Mumford & Sons put on a fine show — fireworks and all — but my favourite moment of the night was when the train arrived to take us home, and I saw that there were two free seats. We fell onto the seat cushions and sighed.

I have reached the sitting years of my life, and much to my surprise, I’m looking forward to them.

A beautiful piece on belonging by George Blue Kelly:

This is what happens when I try to write movie reviews: