The Girl at the Rock Show

The availability of craft beer was one major difference. Everything was Bud or Coors Light back in the late 90s, not that Eric was old enough to buy it then. And there were more teenagers then because rock’s popularity had not yet fallen off the proverbial cliff. When he had cut school for a festival as a junior—a memorably rebellious moment because rare—he had spotted at least a dozen classmates in the food line and in the mosh pit he avoided while Staind played.

Most of the crowd here seemed to be approaching age 30. Or past, like him.

Still, it was fun to be up close at a show again, damaging his hearing along with a crowd again, even if he felt less in the thick of something than he did at 17. It was pure chance that a mutual friend had bailed and connected him with Bill. (“You don’t mind alternative music, do you?”) Bill had paid for up-front placement. Honestly, Erik would have preferred to have saved the extra $30 and gone for a lawn seat more suitable to his observer status.

The two IPAs he took from the vendor, like the group onstage, came on too strong and lacked balance; he’d experienced better, but it was enjoyable. This band at least featured the familiar lineup, singer, guitarist, bassist, drummer. An earlier performer had paused his set when the June weather overheated his laptop.

As Eric walked the music came to a bridge, and the huge screens displayed the guitarist and his precise fingers. Eric actually recognized the present song. Bill had not assigned homework, per se, but Eric had felt a sham when talking to this friend-of-a-friend who actually knew the bands. He had been afraid to listen on speakers at home, where the children might pick up words and ideas for which his wife would reproach him; headphones were not an option at home either, as he had to hear the inevitable call for arbitration of a sibling dispute, or a jar to be opened, or a spider to be squashed. He had therefore burned a playlist of festival artists to CD and listened to it in his car.

That commute playlist had run him through the stages of grief, beginning with, “That’s not alternative rock.” The more electronic voice modulation and artificial bass drops he heard, the more irritated Eric became, wondering what demonic transference had led the genre away from Soundgarden and the Stone Temple Pilots. Here and there a song would catch him and he’d think it would be good to hear live; for the sake of those, and with the right quantity of beer, he could tolerate the dreck. Bargaining.

Depression came on the drive home that day, when he decided to just listen to his usual classic rock station. When Kurt Cobain sang “All apologies,” he could not relish it. The first time Nirvana had joined classic rock radio, Eric had laughed. Now, he felt he was listening to a museum.

He slowly began to accept the alternative playlist spinning on his car’s antiquated technology. He even began to like the music: if it was not worthy of a museum, at least it was fresh enough not to belong there yet. As he drove and listened he would feel less old; and then he would enter his office to review enrollment data and implement the latest marketing campaign.

He found Bill up front in the “VIP” area as the band closed its set. “They were awesome,” Bill said. He sipped the fresh beer Eric handed him.

“Yeah, they were pretty good. I really like the last song. ‘The Gold,’” Eric added, as evidence of his completed homework. “Good song.”

“Definitely,” Bill agreed. “Sorry you missed so much of it. Long line?”

“Yeah, but I could still hear alright.” Truthfully, his tolerance for crowds had shrunk in the last 18 years; a beer run was a good reason to reclaim personal space before the VIP section filled with elbows for the last couple acts.

“I’ve liked them for a long time. They were the main reason I wanted to be up close,” Bill said.

“I can see why.”

They drank their beer, standing together in the amiable silence two awkward people can enjoy together. They had found enough topics during the car ride up, but Bill remained a man of few words. He was an IT guy.

“How much do you know the next band?” Eric asked.

“Matt and Kim? Some.”

“I’ve heard a couple songs. They seemed alright,” Eric said.

“Yeah. I think they’re fine.”

They consumed their IPAs and listened to the house music. The crew had rolled out equipment, and one of the roadies struck each drum four times.

“Are you guys brothers?”

They turned and saw a younger blonde woman behind them, who seemed two, maybe three more beers from slurred speech. “You’re both pretty tall,” she said.

“No,” Bill said. “Just at the show together.”

“I would of sworn you were brothers.”

Eric laughed. “Nope. Just a random pair of six foot redheads. With glasses.”

She put on a skeptical look. “Would you call that red?”

“It’s red,” Eric insisted, talk-shouting above the house music. “It’s leaning brown these days, but there’s still red.”

“Oh, I see it—in the beard,” she said. She extended a hand. “I’m Alexis.”

The curl in her smile suggested it was a nom du concert, which only added to the charm. “Eric,” he said, shaking the hand. She was tall and slender and pretty, and no matter how happily off-the-market Eric was, he enjoyed the small talk. This, too, was different from the festivals of his high school days, when he lacked both the confidence and charisma to actually converse with such a woman.

She shook Bill’s hand, too. “You’re both very tall,” she said.

“So are you,” Erik responded.

“Being tall works pretty well on a day like this.”

“Sure does,” Eric said. After a moment’s lull, he continued, “Sometimes I almost feel bad being the tall person up front.”

“I don’t,” she said. “If the short people want to stand closer, they could of stood closer.”

“This is true,” Eric said. “We earned our place up front.”

“Exactly.” She playfully pushed Eric’s arm with the word, and he was, again, flattered. “Fuck the short people.”

“Fuck the short people,” Eric laughed.

He looked toward the stage and saw the roadie had finished the soundchecks. He sipped more beer, feeling ready for music.

When he turned back she was still there, also watching the stage. “Do you know the next band?” he asked.

“What?”

“Do you know the next band?”

“Matt and Kim? Yeah, they’re like the reason I came. I love them! Have you really never heard them?”

“Not really.” He felt no need to fake knowledge; there is a freedom and an assurance that come from established marriage. “Just a couple songs here and there.”

“They’re fucking amazing!” Alexis shouted.

“I’ll stand up tall so I can see,” Eric replied. “Fuck the short people.”

“Fuck the short people!” She high-fived him, high, and then the crowd erupted.

Matt was on the keyboard, Kim was on the drums – literally, standing on the bass drum and hitting her sticks together. She hopped into position behind the set and started banging away as beach balls began circulating and Matt sang, “Alright, it’s alright, it’s alright you’ll see…” No one would mistake them for the most technically skilled musicians of the day, but they knew how to work an audience. At various points Matt would stand, stretch one arm to the keyboard and the other toward the open sky and jump as he played, which was quite a thing from a 6’6 guy, and the crowd was all in for every moment.

Electronic music wasn’t really Eric’s jam, but it was still the most entertaining opener of the day.

“Hello Buffalo we’re Matt and Kim how are you tonighhhht!” The thousands roared with enthusiasm they had reserved till after sunset. “Now,” Matt continued, “Last time we were in Buffalo, I remember things got a little rowdy. Like Kim likes it in the bedroom.” Another roar.

Kim teased the thread out further. “So we need to bring all the rowdy out here tonight – we have a level to top. You need to drop that shit down—” she began twerking while Matt covered his laughing face with apparent modesty—“and we need some fucking crowd surfing popping off in here!” Even to a natural wallflower like Eric, their patter was infectious.

“So before we start this next song,” Matt went on, “we need all the crazy dance people up here. Come on crazy dance people, right here in front. Show us what you got!”

The duo started to play and several people pushed forward. Amused, Eric crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels a little. And then a hand gripped his.

“Come on!” Alexis shouted over the music. “I think we can make it!” She pulled him into the crowd as though it were the only possible action.

Eric took one glance at a befuddled Bill and offered a one-handed shrug, then yielded to the moment and followed the woman into a mass of backs. Their shoulders wedged through small spaces between humans. Her trailing hand still interlocked with Eric’s—he tried to remember when he had last held another woman’s hand. She wore a beaded bracelet. Matt and Kim played, lights flashed. He kept following her shoulder-length hair that flowed above everyone else’s, kept holding the possibility of her soft hand. He imagined dancing with her through the night, being close to her, improbably kissing her before parting. A man shifted to the right and he lost her. Eric ducked around him when he eventually could and pressed further forward to reach her. She was fixed in a spot now, dancing with someone else seven feet and a dozen bodies ahead.

He realized with a surrounded pang that he would not be able to reach her. He danced, watched her dance, but even before the song ended he knew it did not matter. He could not stop smiling. It wasn’t really her he was seeking.

Matt and Kim revved the crowd yet higher, and instead of more beach balls, they threw inflatable sex dolls for their fans to bat. Kim demanded that someone dance on the port-a-potty before the next song ended. Eric danced freely with the throng, leapt with the beat and sang choruses he’d never heard before. He felt good as he hoisted yet another crowd-surfer. Young.