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Discovering Teenage Freedom and Feeling through Live Music

Five days ago, I stood in a sea of people as the lights went out, and I lived a new experience. It was the first concert I had ever attended. Friday I went to my second. Man, what a week! My brother Hunter, my cousin Cody, and I saw Boston on Tuesday night at the Minnesota State Fair. Then, Friday, at the same venue, it was the Steve Miller Band. It was awesome!

I’m 15 years old, and this is the last week of summer vacation. Come Tuesday, I will be a Sophomore in high school. My cousin Cody, who is the same age as me, lives a few towns away and goes to a different school, but we have been as thick as thieves pretty much since we were born. Hunter is twenty-one and is going to a broadcasting college in Minneapolis. Over the last year or so, Cody and I have been hanging with Hunter quite a bit. He’s fun to be around, and since Cody and I aren’t old enough to drive, it’s advantageous to be close to him.

Hunter and I have been going to the state fair most of our lives. Growing up, it was a tradition to go to the fair with our mom and her friend Mae. Over the last couple of years, it’s changed. I’m old enough to be allowed to navigate the world on my own a little bit. Luckily for me, Hunter has his driver’s license and is viewed as a “responsible” adult. Last summer, Hunter, Cody, and I ventured to the fair by ourselves. It was a little taste of independence, wandering the grounds, eating a lot of fried food, and playing games at the midway. As we got ready to leave last year, I remember hearing this music coming from inside the Grandstand. I didn’t think much of it as the sounds and lights of the fair dissipated as we got on the freeway.

Earlier this summer, Hunter told me that the band Boston was going to play a concert at the Grandstand, and a couple of nights after that, it would be the Steve Miller Band. I had never been to a proper concert before, but I was eager to check it out, as music has become a central fixture in my life. Hunter is a big Boston fan. I was lukewarm on them, but I was into Steve Miller. We decided to go to both shows. We invited Cody along, but he could only make the Boston concert.

Hunter has been to a few concerts over the years, and I know Cody saw Billy Joel a couple of years ago. While going to the concerts sounded fun, I wasn’t overly excited about it, which was a little strange. I read Rolling Stone every month, have a CD playing on my stereo constantly, and love to watch VH1 when they show classic concerts. And while those concerts always seem incredible, I just didn’t understand the magic of live music because I’d never experienced it.

The day of the show, the three of us wandered around the state fair grounds most of the afternoon, eating fried food, testing our skills with games of chance, harassing the carnies, and scoping out cute girls. As the afternoon turned to early evening, we decided it was time to make our way to the Grandstand for the Boston concert. When we were driving to the fairgrounds that day, Hunter had thrown on a Boston CD. Hearing some of those songs had gotten me a little more pumped up for the concert that night.

As we walked through the gates and headed to our seats, I glimpsed the stage for the first time and heard the murmur of the fans already seated. We stopped at the concessions window on our way inside. Popcorn in hand, we found our seats and got situated. Hunter started talking about something from earlier in the day, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was busy getting a feel for where I was. I scanned the expanse of the Grandstand as daylight started to fade beyond the stage. The music coming through the public address system grew a little louder, and the seats began to fill with people. There was an energy inside there that didn’t exist on the other side of the ticket gate. I got a sense of tension and anticipation, not just my own but of everyone in attendance.

I turned back to the stage, and the lights on it went out just as the music coming from the PA abruptly ceased. The din of the separate conversations in the crowd suddenly turned into one voice, cheering and whistling towards the stage. I felt something in that moment that I’m sure I have never experienced before. It was as if every cell in my body was vibrating, and my skin was buzzing, as if I could feel all of the energy from this mass of people passing through me. And just when I was sure that I couldn’t endure this feeling, the stage lights shot on and the zing of an electric guitar rang out. Boston lit into their first song of the night, and all that tension was gone.

Man, what a rush! The concert flew by. It was two hours of Classic Rock radio staples. Following the customary post-concert fireworks show, Cody, Hunter, and I headed for the exits. As we got to our car and started the drive home, I couldn’t believe I would get to do this again in just a few days! I didn’t know what to expect, and now I knew why. Those feelings I had during the buildup to the show can’t be recreated outside the concert environment.

Another thing I got from the concerts I attended this week was a new sense of freedom that I hadn’t experienced before. I’m always a little tentative about trying new things, lest people judge my actions. In the environment of a concert, though, things feel a little looser. There’s a sense of unpredictability; that a little more is being allowed to go on than should be. A feeling that you could try something new and not be immediately judged or scolded. I realized this wrinkle while at the Boston concert, and tested the theory again three nights later at the Steve Miller show.

At the Boston show, all the anticipation and excitement that had built up were released with the opening guitar riffs and a roar from the crowd as we first glimpsed the band. In that moment, I was holding my bucket of popcorn. As the band hit the stage, I joined the collective roar by whooping out and simultaneously raised my popcorn in one fast movement. As my arm reached its apex, the cup in my hand stopped; the popcorn, however, just kept riding the momentum and showered over the crowd around me. I pulled the cup back down quickly and snapped into reality, going from feelings of elation to embarrassment in an instant. I quickly scanned around and assessed the situation. Hunter and Cody were both laughing wildly at my antics, but it appeared that no one else had even noticed. The embarrassment of my faux pas receded, and happiness and elation came back. At the Steve Miller Concert, this sense of being able to take a chance and try something new, propelled me to take a much bigger risk….

Two years ago, when I was in eighth grade, I attended a birthday party at the local bowling alley. The party was for a buddy of mine that I attended West Junior High with. At the party, he had invited a few girls he knew from East Junior High. I hit it off with a couple of them, and became good friends with both Ashley & Lauren over the next few years. One of the things we bonded over was our love of classic rock. Over time, I had developed a closer friendship with Ashley, but I really dug Lauren. So, while on the phone with Ashley a couple of nights before the Steve Miller concert, she mentioned that Lauren was going to the show, and I got excited. I hadn’t seen her all summer. As soon as I hung up with Ashley, I called Lauren to see if she wanted to meet up at the concert. While our seats weren’t near each other, we made a plan to meet up before the concert started.

The day of the Steve Miller Band show, Hunter & I arrived at the Grandstand just minutes before the show was set to start. I told him I was going to run and see Lauren for a minute and would meet him at our seats. I was annoyed that we were late and was hoping she hadn’t gone to her seat yet. I went as quickly as I could, weaving through people. I was looking straight ahead and ran right into someone’s back. The person turned to me and said, “Geez, I haven’t seen you for two months, and you forgot what I look like!?”

It was Lauren. We only talked for a few minutes before the lights went down and the music on the PA got louder, indicating that the show was about to start. She told me where her seat was, and I told her I would find her later.

I started back to my seat with a huge smile on my face. She had looked better than I remembered and seemed cooler somehow. That feeling of anticipation I had at the Boston concert was back now, it seemed more intense tonight, the vibrating cells, waiting for those opening notes, the whistles and cheers of the crowd. I made it to my seat just as the tension broke when the band lit into “Swingtown”. The band was fantastic and sounded the same as their album. I didn’t want to ditch Hunter, but when I leaned over and told him I was going to sit by Lauren, he was cool with it. We arranged to meet up at the end of the concert.

As I made my way to find Lauren, that sense of freedom and possibility began to return. With the perfect sound of Steve Miller coming from the stage, I turned and started up the stairs of the Grandstand with a new anticipation and a bit of nervous energy. I was so excited that I didn’t realize that climbing up to row 58 was quite the trek. As I passed row 45, I realized Lauren was sitting in the very last row.

The view of the fairgrounds from here, all lit up, was spectacular; the view of the stage, not so much. It didn’t matter; I wasn’t looking down there anyway. I turned into the row and saw a big smile on Lauren’s face. She opened her arms and gave me a big hug. I reached over and grabbed hold of her hand. She looked up and smiled.

That feeling of anticipatory tension and possibility was high as Steve Miller launched into the guitar solo of “True Fine Love,” and I took my chance. I leaned over and kissed Lauren, and she grabbed me, kissing me right back. As the music ended and the fireworks bloomed overhead, I felt like I was on top of the world.

I get it now. Witnessing live music did something to me; it seeped into my skin, eliciting emotion and revealing something that seemed hidden before. In two days, it’s back to school, and it looks like it’ll be a good year.