And We Slam Danced

It’s three minutes to show time. Everyone is talking, excited that it is about to start, or else they are impatiently listening to the band warm-up and test their speakers and chords and instruments. There are no chairs so no one is sitting down. We didn’t come to a concert to sit down. We came to get lightheaded, dehydrated; make it so that for the next three days we have to ask our friends sitting four feet away to repeat what we said, maybe even have a bruise and some blood to show for it.

That is what happens when we go to a concert. Most of us know each other. At least, we have seen most of the faces in the room in passing. We have hit them, sometimes. Or they’ve hit us. Because the room is small. The venue is small. The town is small. Obviously, the audience will be, too. That means it isn’t difficult to recognize most of the undergrounders in our small city. Counter-culture, God love it. Most of us probably don’t believe in God, though. Except it doesn’t matter. Very little matters except that the band is two minutes late in starting but since the lights just went out we all know what to expect.

It hits us. We were all expecting it. But the opening note slams us all like a stray hand slapping us in the cheek. It’s okay. Those are on the way soon enough. The music starts full speed and we know what to expect next since the first note was all that was needed for the sparks of recognition to fly. Notes- they don’t remain notes for very long. Screams and words and key and pitch become music which becomes emotion. Three. Three have already begun dancing.

Most are still warming up. Stand and look up at the floodlights only ten feet above the players heads, people! Look! Close your eyes. Throw your hair into your eyes and to the side. Rise up into the air with a leap- don’t come down until the chord crescendos. The first song is over. As introductions begin, some people realize they had started to dance before the song was over and they stop to hear what is being said. These guys- these girls- they seem pretty cool. Pretty fun. None of us are fooled. They are insane once the song begins. So is everyone else.

Each dance is the dancers own. Everyone feels the same sense of togetherness as well as that inimitable quality of self. Someone bumps into us. We bump back. The center of the hall is cleared by some since not everyone wants the same thing and some just want to listen and jig. All the rest of us stay. Music is our blood and it pours out of us each time we are struck. Expression is our strength and it builds each time we strike.

There is about as much order in the pit as there is in the rest of the world, but it is clearer in the mosh. Balance is useless, since every time we start to fall we are pounded back to our feet by a check from the side we are tripping towards. When we do fall, we are picked up by a friendly hand only to be knocked away by that same hand. When we beat back, we use flailing arms and tackles and shoulders and even our skulls. Pain defines the evening, it doesn’t hurt. More join in. Inspiration from a moving breakdown, maybe. Or a yell. Sometimes it is a yell that gets the fire prodding again. That is one of those inexplicable things, how the mosh has a few moments of absolute intensity, absolute passion and then we moshers all cool off. At the same time, we know when to throw ourselves back in the ring. Another round starts.

Everything arbitrary in our lives dies on those nights. Social laws and rules that we are taught along with our abcs cease to exist, as does the significance of who knows their abcs and 123s best. Roles for men and women and children and blacks and foreigners... No roles exist in the mosh. Society and culture is not what it is about. It isn’t about anarchy, either. ‘It’ is for it’s own sake.

Coffee. Lots of us serve coffee. We check bags at Wal-Mart. Sandwich makers and toilet cleaners. An outsider would not know this by looking at us now, though. That is because now, while we dance and yell and jump, we aren’t coffee house baristas. Or drive through order takers. Or Jew and Gentile or Gay and Straight. We just are not those things. Labels aren’t. We are. We feel. We dance. Zig-zag, zig-zag, we look like zombies if zombies were a horde of individuals and felt the kind of emotion with each note that some people only allow themselves to feel a few times in their life. And we are like zombies, if zombies didn’t eat people but devoured all sensation.

‘One more!’ We scream in unison with each of our voices as the band thanks us for moving and being here tonight. ‘One more!’ There are a few specific requests. Still, most of us don’t care what song they play. Thing is, we still have some energy left and we can’t leave until we have used it up. Bodies can protest- they can say ‘I’m tired! End it.’ But souls love music. Heart loves music. So another song is played in rejection of the pleas of our bodies. Music is played once more for our souls and our hearts. And they dance. Everyone, this time.