The View from 58-inches High

Last night Brain and I did date night with dinner and Death Cab for Cutie. We don’t do date night often and we never do concerts. Brian and I typically have very different taste in music; which is why I was shocked the day he asked me if I’d ever heard of Death Cab for Cutie. On a side note, he hates The Postal Service? The venue is just around the block from my office so we met up at my office and walked over to get dinner nearby. Dinner was really tasty but the service was horrible. It turned out to be fine as we got to the venue just before 9:00 and only had to wait a few minutes for Death Cab to start playing. Our seats were general admission so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see much. I was just looking forward to a good show

They were amazing!! One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to; yet the crowd was listless. I don’t know what’s happened to concerts in the last 15-years; I suppose I wasn’t keeping track. Apparently, if you really like a show you sway, take some photos, and whisper to your friends. I felt so out of place. I dressed for this concert in a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers specifically because I thought it would be rowdy down on the floor. I made sure I had nothing but my phone and my ID in case I wanted to crowd surf. When we got in the door, I saw most other women were wearing heals and carrying large purses.  Throughout the show I was jumping up and down, dancing, singing and screaming at the top of my lungs. The people around me… looked annoyed by my behavior. What absolutely killed me though was when people came out from the front nobody packed in! Even if it meant there was a huge hole in the crowd! Forget crowd surfing! The band tried so hard to get everybody riled up but to no avail. The people around me kept saying how good the show was so it seems they were enjoying themselves…

When did this happen? When did concert going, especially with general admission tickets, become about texting your friends and taking photos. I remember when you couldn’t help but let the music infect you. Before you even had time to think about it you’d be jumping. Then everybody would jump. It didn’t matter that you were all bumping into each other. In fact, that’s exactly how mosh pits got started. If you didn’t want to be there anymore, you’d just crowd surf your way out. And to think, we didn’t even have cell phones back then. How did we ever find each other?!?

So while it was an amazing show, I left feeling cheated. I wanted to be a part of a sea of moving bodies and instead I spent most of the night swaying with my arms crossed; like everybody else around me. In the end, it felt more like a lame work party where you don’t really know anybody. I can only imagine how difficult it is to be a rock start these days. Fantastic show guys! I wish I could have “gone up”. Not that anybody would have known what I was talking about.