Just a Rock Show
It’s just a rock show.
But, the night has a taste to it. Summer is still heavy in the air. A stiff breeze dances in off the harbor. The sky streaks orange before twilight turns to night.
It’s just a rock show.
But, it’s under your skin. And all the skins you’ve ever been.
It’s a timeline.
A time warp.
It’s time travel.
Because you’re thirty-something and pushing, but you’re also nineteen and just the right amount of drunk. And the bar is dark and loud. Warm bodies pressed onto a dance floor. Synchronized and chaotic. It’s late, but the night is just beginning. You’ll see the sun come up. You’ll sing all the words back, and you’ll go home with laughter and amplifiers still echoing in your ears. There’s fries and gravy on the asphalt, as you sit on the curb to wait for cabs that never seem to come.
But, you’re also twenty-three with cheeks hot from the flames before you. The promise of Fall cold on your back. And your best friend’s fingers are bleeding from playing the songs you know all the words to. He keeps swearing it off for the night, but his mother keeps saying: “come on, just one more song.” And your voice is hoarse from singing. All the voices around you are boisterous with glittering eyes. All the melodies are beautifully out of key, and perfectly in tune with the night. Firelight sparks float into streaks of daybreak.
But, you’re also twenty-nine and everything is changing, but the soundtrack is still the same. The days are longer and the nights are shorter. The beats that bounced off the walls of house parties, now echo through empty halls. With moving boxes by the door. And you’re a little bit sad with nostalgia, and a little bit stoned on hope. Everything changes. But, some things still sound the same.
And you’re thirty-something and pushing, but you’ve been here before. A stiff breeze dances in off the harbor. And the sky streaks orange as the amplifiers buzz. You see faces you haven’t seen in a while. Some since the world got quiet; some since a crowded dance floor; some since high school. Others you’ve watched age like the lines on your own face.
All accounted for.
All one rhythm.
One melody.
The lights go up. And the back beat drops.
Time stops.
And we’re every one we’ve ever been, as those same notes wash over us. Guitars strung with heartstrings. It’s electric. It’s visceral. It’s untamed magic, un-tethered to time and place.
As the encore fades, time snaps back into focus. And we close the night with sausages from the fantastical food stand with all the lights. As a man with a top hat makes small talk with us. And we walk away with crumbs and laughter on our chins. Then we return home to our mortgages, and our dogs. We settle into houses with pre-programmed coffee pots and sleeping babies, with our ears still ringing. The notes of who we were and who we are vibrating along our bones.
It was just a rock show.
But, for a moment; for those moments…
It was everything.