05 February 2006

Before going to a concert... Read this!

I wrote this after a de lillos gig in April 1991, but some of it's useful advice, I think... (Freshly translated into English tonight.)

We're at the doors a couple of hours before they open. First one's in. We tie our jackets around our waists to avoid any queues at the wardrobe. Then we make our way towards the stage. By common sense and natural selection (after all, this is not our first concert!) we're all 5'7" (170 cms). Which means our lower ribs will be pressed against the fence in front of the stage. This might sound painful (and indeed is, I broke a rib in one of these concerts), but is actually both smart and necessary for two reasons: If we were any taller, the fence would be pressed into our stomachs and leave no space to draw air. My good friend C, 5'10", knows what I'm talking about. She once had to be carried out by the Red Cross and revived with a few hundred litres of water during a concert... And were we any shorter, it would have been even more painful, as we're all girls (women? In our early twenties...) and there were at least two protruding elements making the fence less desirable for us than for our male co-concertees...

From experience we hooked one leg on each side of a bar in the fence so we stayed put as the crowd started to move. Two of our male friends, above the magical height, opted for going with the flow, which meant moving wildly back and forth. Afterwards they told us they'd actually only heard the first song... . We have had just enough to eat and drink. Meaning we wouldn't have to leave our posts to stand in endless lines at the rest room or at the bar. We were ready!

[...]

Later on, I scream without sound; "I'm so thirsty!" to my friend nearest by. The singing, shouting and increasingly smoke-filled air has left us with no voices. Her increasingly blue face implies that she shares my feelings, though. Two seconds later the lead singer swallows the last drop of something from a bottle. She and I stare at eachother, then at the stage floor. There's a rich selection of brown and white bottles there. Now, neither Farris nor beer is my favourite drink, but I was so thirsty! And it looked so good! I saw my friend repeat the moves in pure apathy as the singer opened a new bottle. He took a sip. We gasped. Then he moved towards the microphone stay. Past it. Straight at us. Then he gives us the bottle! We gasp again.
He starts playing, and we share the best beer ever. Moses in his desert was never more satisfied with a sudden well of water than we were that night...

2 comments:

Claire said...

Very cool.

x said...

dearest, i got your package! i'm so excited! i'll post about it later. thank you so much. xxx