A Fan's Playground

Last night I was at a fun. concert in Toronto. It was really good! I've seen fun. in concert once before, and this was a really different experience because HOLY CRAP THAT WAS A LOT OF PEOPLE. The venue was Downsview Park, and I've been trying to figure out via the magic of the internets how many people were there and I am failing. BUT IT WAS A LOTTTTTTT.

Anyways. Last time I was complaining because doors opened at 7 and fun. didn't come on until 9:30. This time doors opened at 4 and fun. didn't come on until 9:30. I WAS LUCKY LAST TIME.

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I went to my first ever concert-y concert a little over a year ago, when I saw Great Big Sea in Toronto, and one of the things I learned at that event is something that is continuing to stick with me in all my bandomy stuff. Which is that people at concerts sing along. When what you've previously been to is small-venue concerts with singer-songwriter types, singing along is not so much a thing that happens. And yes, singing along happens at folk festivals, but that's because it's folk and that's what's supposed to happen, and why should I expect it elsewhere?

But I keep on seeing in fic, over and over and over again, that if you're making it as a band even a little bit then you will have fans singing along, and that's just -- mindblowing. I always used to feel really sad that modern western culture didn't have many socially acceptable ways for people to just sing for the fun of it. I was always in some choir or another at the very least so I had an outlet, but that's relatively unusual and it made me so sad that a lot of people just...never really sing ever.

EXCEPT I WAS WRONG.

Because people who go to concerts sing.

And they might be crappy singers, but that doesn't matter, because they know the songs and they love the songs and being able to connect in with the energy and excitement of it with their voice is a powerful thing and I just... oh, I have so many ~feelings~ about this, you don't even know.

Because -- and you may have caught on to this given ALL THE POSTS I have been doing in these last few months about music -- music is a thing that is really important to me. In so many ways. At my peak in high school I was in four different choirs and two different bands and also private trumpet lessons, all at the same time. (...I know. I don't know where I found the time to do anything else either!) I got up before 5:30 in the morning almost every day in order to be at early-morning rehearsals, and I did so willingly despite being the opposite of a morning person.

I'm not as involved in music activities these days, because it's harder to do outside the structure of school, but it still means every bit as much to me as it did back in the days when I was making music an unholy number of hours every week. Music just means so much to me, you guys, and the thought of making music with other people like that is enough to make me cry sometimes.

And I can't even find the words to explain or describe what it is about it, just that it's something -- something amazing, and so to know that people who don't have the musical background I do can still experience something like that, every time they go to a concert? That means a lot to me. A really fucking lot.

(...Also it makes me want to go to more concerts but that's kinda beside the point. But I am so bitter that MCR was in Toronto like a month after I started getting into their music, and I was oblivious to the fact that they were there until weeks after. I am willing to bet it's going to be a very long time before any of the bandom bands is back playing in a place within a reasonable distance of me again. And MCR is the one I want to see the most. And I missed my chance.)