In concert.

"Miles Davis, I've been swayed by The Cool.
There's just something about the summertime.
There's just something about the moon." - The Gaslight Anthem

"I still believe (I still believe) in the sound
That has the power to raise a temple and tear it down....
Now who'd have that thought, that after all,
Something as simple as rock 'n' roll would save us all." - Frank Turner


I first noticed her because she looked like my friend's ex-girlfriend. The same desert constellations of freckles surrounding tide-colored eyes. Different hair, hers more '50s inspired with a dramatic part. What you would expect from a girl waiting to see The Gaslight Anthem. An indiscernible monochrome tattoo venturing out beneath a rim of white lace and a short sleeve of black polyester patterned in a grid of thin white polka dots. Enough to hint at the visual similarities to the girl I knew but not be overcome by them. But even more a subconscious familiarity. The strangers you've never met that you feel comfortable around.

She stood pressed against a grey barricade delineating a four foot moat of pavement that kept the two halves of the crowd separated for security to roam up and down, occasionally pulling crowd-surfers off shifting platforms of hands, as well as photographers pacing and positioning, hands clutching enormous cameras, lenses like red wine bottles. I was on the other side of the barrier, another tightly-packed individual in that growing audience in a parking lot in New Jersey, the last night sky of April so clear you had to consciously acknowledge it, the lights and towers of Manhattan easily visible some miles off. My 40 minute wait for the band was an impromptu rotation mainly of looking around the crowd, talking to Ryan next to me, and looking down to text. It was with my head down rereading Kyle's message about the show that I saw movement peripherally while also feeling a shifting in the weight against my back. I turned left and saw the girl in the polka dot shirt reaching across that few-man's-land of space and the girl behind me stretching equally hard to meet her in the middle. They each pulled back looking accomplished, the nub of the joint they had handed off so small that I noticed their reaction first, and the girl behind me took about three hits off it while I smiled to myself and turned back to facing the stage.

This was a long festival show, and I rarely do festivals anymore. Coachella would overwhelm and frustrate me, bands that I love performing simultaneously on opposite ends of the grounds while elsewhere pool parties abounded. The judgement of Solomon played out in real life. This was far more manageable. Two acts in The Gaslight Anthem and Frank Turner that I was dying to see, and a few other good bands also performing that I could check out as well, none of my choices overlapping. It gave the day a really casual feel and I spent far less time racing between stages than I did remembering all those outdoor shows I grew up on in California summers. The Sprite Liquid Mix where my friend Mark tried to follow Jay-Z's invitation for everyone to rush down to the pit and got clotheslined and laid out by a security guard. The Warped Tours of high school when A.F.I. was playing a side stage at 3 in the afternoon, and we accidentally saw 311 and Pennywise five times in the course of a summer. My first real concert, a $5 admission at Santa Anita racetrack where bands played on the infield in between horse races and I crowdsurfed for the first time to "Prisoner of Society" by The Living End. That's probably why I wasn't annoyed by all the New Jersey teenagers around. I was too busy thinking of what a little shit I must have been at that age that I will never get to be again.

Brian of The Gaslight Anthem talked about how excited he was to play this show in their home state of Jersey. With tattooed hands and fingers gripping the microphone, he talked about the band still owning the van they did their first tour in and how for this show they loaded it up with equipment like they did years ago and drove everything here themselves because they loved that feeling of nostalgia and their roots. They played timeless rock songs about common emotions we've all felt under a clear summer sky with the Empire State Building visible behind them. And Brian talked before another song about the feeling that being here gave them. "This'll sound fake, but it's not, this is something real. This means a lot to us, and the feeling you give us is incredible. I really feel like you guys are our friends right now. And we're so happy to be here, with you." They launched into another song and the crowd threw their palms toward the stage, had their index fingers in the air for the chorus of "Great Expectations" and as my voice sang along I realized for the first time, after over a decade of shows, that the word concert is the perfect description for the experience. Music is the one true unifying art form. Walk around MoMA or Musee d'Orsay and you'll study the works and think of what you see in them, what elements of them speak to you. Then you can read the little plaque that elaborates on more details or influences and arguments you probably missed. At films we laugh at different jokes or are frightened at differing times by varying types of scares. Some people focus on the cinematography while others analyze the costume design, or the art direction. Think of all the various critical essays a single novel or even poem can catalyze, the arguments about the true meaning of an ambiguous ending. Live music unites us, breeding one astounding composite emotion the entire crowd feels. For those hours, despite all our differences and idiosyncrasies we had before our tickets were scanned and that we will resume again in the parking lot, for the length of those songs we are living in concert. We are one in harmony.

It happened probably a minute and a half after the first time. The Gaslight Anthem still hadn't taken the stage yet. All we had of them was a soundcheck by the drummer and their giant black and white banner featuring the band's name scrawled next to a massive multi-sailed brig forging along upon an ocean of waves. The joint was truly finished, the chemicals in the body and the weed most likely starting to interact now. The girl behind me suddenly reached over the barricade first and the girl with the tattoo and the polka dots craned her arm again from her side of the gap, and this time it was much harder because of what their hands were doing. Each had a closed fist and they struggled until the two sets of knuckles erased the chasm and met in the middle, touching briefly but firmly before retreating back. Their bodies leaned back to where they were standing before, eyes still locked in contact for a few seconds, irises smiling, before turning back to face forward and await the band about to take the stage.