Last night I saw The Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox Twenty in the same venue I had my first concert at fifteen years ago. Though it has gone through many name changes the venue remains the same. There’s the humming heart beat drum beat, open fresh air, the surprise set list and marijuana scented nights where if you aren’t sitting in the covered seats you can look up and see the stars and the moon.
Live music makes me remember how much I love certain lyrics. It makes me fall in love with bands all over again. Live music brings up all sorts of memories, nostalgia and emotions in a different ways. I can only attempt to explain this by saying that I have “so many feels“. The goosebumps from just the right words, tears of remembrance or recognition and excitement by the song choice are just part of the experience for me. Add in awesome friends, silly iPhone pictures and constant singing/ dancing/ crowd participation and you have the perfect formula for an awesome live music experience.
I used to leave every show with a new t-shirt and sleep in late the next day in a sort of concert hangover. And now even though the live shows I go to seem to be less frequent (having responsibilities sometimes disrupts the necessity/ ease at which attending concerts used to have), while I am there I always experience the same emotions, excitement and sense that yes, I am alive.
Just as Rob Thomas came on stage last night he said something truly amazing, and I feel like it summed up everything. Rob started to explain how we all came to this venue tonight with stuff on our minds our own problems and issues but he proposed that “we forget about that for a second… for this little time this it our time… we are going to play music and you guys are going to have a good time… And when it’s all said and done we are going to go back to our lives and you are going to go back to yours, and we’re all going to feel like we celebrated life together because this would be a missed opportunity tonight if we did not. So who wants to celebrate life together?”
