Concerting

I've been to concerts. I've been to a concert of nearly 100,000 people. I've been to concerts with less than 20 people. I've seen local bands, traveling dirt poor bands, popular bands, really really popular bands. Basically, it's not that I've seen everything, but I have a pretty good idea of what its going to look like. And a good band, a good concert rather, will make me fall in love. And this happening can take place at any venue, any concert size, with any band... if they're good enough. I think I fall in love almost any time I hear my favoritest boys, shekinah play "the breaker anointing". I fell in love when I saw Spoon and heard "everything hits at once" with simple yellow lights flashing sitting on a lonely chair. I fell in love with colour revolt during "everything is just the same" with a tiny croud, in my favorite theater, with nothing for aesthetics but their skinny bodies standing articulate and focused. I fell in love at the center of an ocean of people, with Bono singing "far away, so close" with the stage dark and the lights of phones and cameras illuminating the night like starry heavens.
I saw the Arctic Monkeys. I fell in love a hundred times over. Did I cry? No. Was I overwhelmed with emotions in an inarticulate and pensive fashion? No. But let me paint the picture, because any and everyone would have fallen in love if you saw what I saw, heard what I heard, felt what I felt. Here. listen. The Arctic Monkeys are like the biggest band in the UK right now. Why? because they're super super good. I kind of don't want to explain how good they are, and break down why they're so popular, because I could talk about that all day. But, the Ogden is like smaller than the El Ray theatre, and we got to see and experience an Arctic Monkeys concert there. This is opposed to their usual 20-40,000 people concerts in Europe. Everyone had this nervous surging energy flowing through and around them because they had no idea what to do with themselves. Alex Turner's voice, perfection. Matt Helders drumming, dreamy, mind blowing, beautiful, hypnotic. Guitar rifs, dewdsick. With some really chuggy baselines that made your stomach queasy. The lights were stark and saturated, creating clean angles that cut through the thick, continual, intruiguing fog. This atmosphere created the perfect tone for the mysterious, unreal, and at times haunting sounds of the band. It was like a dream. The pulse of the fans. The sound that crawled up the walls, vibrating up your body through the floors, and around your spinning head. It was so real, like waking up to find your dream came true. They maintained their personas of untouchable badasses. So yes, I heard the nightmare lullaby "pretty visitors" and almost passed out. Right then, I was struck. I fell in love.