Girl At The Rock Show

Over the weekend I spontaneously went to a concert at the Forrest Hills Tennis Club.  If you have never been there and you get the opportunity to check out a concert there, definitely do it!  That is now one of my favorite venues ever.  For an outdoor stadium, the sound was good, all seats had a good view of the stage (although we had particularly good seats) and the vibe of the concert was just intimate and fun; granted that may have had something to do with the band.  That brings me to the real reason of the article, the concert I went to was for the band Brand New.  If you don’t know who they are, you should google them right now, I’ll wait! 

But for a quick background, they are a Long Island based band that started in 2000.  They are currently working on their fifth album, and with every new album they released, the band has tweaked their sound (vibe) somewhat.  While they always stick within the genre of rock, they have grown from pop punk to indie to emo and now are in alternative.

Although Brand New may not be known by everyone, they have a really big following, and as the occupants of the crowd at the Tennis Club could attest, they are loved by rockers/bros/sorority girls/young and old people alike.  Brand New amongst a few other bands got me through a lot of my adolescence, and looking around the crowd at the Tennis Club, it looked like many of people could say the same.  The minute they took the stage, the crowd roared with excitement and praise, and from the very first note of their very first song, it was evident I would be boarding the nostalgia train for the evening. 

Every song they played transported me, and the rest of the audience, to a different time and place.  I sat in my seat swaying to the music, belting out every song, as did the rest of the crowd; it was really a transcendental experience.  I have gone to several concerts in my adulthood, but I really used to go to a lot through my youth and in college.  If I went to one show a month, it was a slow month.  However now, as I am older, the same shows I used to go to are hit and miss.  Sometimes they’re a lot of fun, and other times I’m annoyed I’m being squished behind a mosh pit and some smelly/sweaty 20 year old is too deeply in my personal space. 

However, seeing Brand New Saturday night made me realize how great concerts and shows can be when the music really means something to you.  Listening to Jesse Lacey and his band and being in that environment, surrounded by music and people who loved it as much as I do, made me extremely happy to be there.  I was happy to be in the moment, my soul was calm and content, and I was filled with an abundance of love for the universe.  That show reminded me why my first love was music, which apparently was something I needed to be reminded of since I thought I was getting too old for shows.

Brand New and a few of the other indie bands of my youth always spoke to me in a way that doesn’t happen every day.  In college I once turned in a 5 page paper that revolved around one Brand New song and it’s meaning to me.  I am a firm believer that anything can have personal meaning, but music should most definitely be one of those things.  So I guess the lesson I learned Saturday was you are never too old to see your favorite band or to relive memories that always had such a huge impact ony our life.