My boyfriend is in a band. That sounds so cool, doesn’t it? I feel so cool saying it. It’s a rock band with two of his childhood best friends, and he plays bass (really well, may I add). He plays concerts all over New England, small concerts in partnership with other small bands, fueled solely by passion and Taco Bell, but they’re so cool nonetheless. He says he plays better when I’m in the audience watching him with a silly grin on my face, trying to look like the cool rockstar everyone else in the audience and lineup is, but nonetheless failing miserably and just looking like a lovey-dovey dork. Every time his set is done, I wait for him to clean up the stage a bit before I go up there and kiss him in congratulations right in front of everyone (especially the cute rockstar chicks I’m so irrationally jealous of).
My first concert was on September 15th, in Agawam, MA. It had been so long since I last saw live music, and I was shaking in anticipation on the car ride there; I could barely keep my food down. Meeting all of my boyfriend’s rockstar friends was the first challenge of the night: do I handshake, hug, nothing, head nod, quick wave? Is my outfit punk enough? Should I have dyed my hair in a dorm basement before this? Turns out, no one cared. I was quickly welcomed into the inner circle, being assigned an alias that will stick with me through time: Mrs. Ditley, a homage to my boyfriend’s childhood nickname. To this day, the bands have trouble recalling my name and refer to me as Mrs. Ditley. I certainly don’t mind; what an honor.
As his band made their way towards the stage, I was now challenged to figure out where to stand. I had just met the vocalist’s girlfriend, Jane. Jane was one of the coolest people I had ever met, the perfect punk rockstar, with 5-inch high combat boots, heavy cat eye eyeliner, and pitch black wavy curls. We immediately hit it off, despite my (allegedly very apparent) anxiety. Band girlfriends gotta stick together, right? Well, Jane is a mosher, standing dead center in the audience. I am the complete opposite of a mosher, terrified of getting accidentally punched, usually preferring to stay in the back sections of stadiums, solely enjoying the music. Should I get over that and just mosh? What if they think I’m lame? Turns out no one cared. I needed to find a good view to enjoy the sights and be able to properly blow my boyfriend kisses in a “You’re doing great!” soccer mom moment. I promptly grabbed some ear plugs (once you hear auditory cells don’t regenerate, you never forget it) and made my way to the front of the stage, standing directly in front of a speaker roughly five times larger than my head.
The concert went by faster than I had wanted. I could watch them forever, the way they were all so entranced in the music, knowing exactly what to do to get the crowd pumping; it was like magic. No matter how many times I watch them play, I will always be fully hypnotized and utterly disappointed when they’re done. Turns out the best concerts are authentic ones, the ones with little support, the grassroots ones, the ones where everyone knows each other even if you don’t know each other. The best concerts are those running on pure love for music from both sides, and that was all I witnessed on September 15th, October 27th, and all the other concerts I am yet to attend. In the end, as it is with all things, the local Western Massachusetts underground music scene is made wonderful by love. In the end, it’s all love.