It is Saturday evening and I am at Pitchfork Music Festival with Bethany, Rachel, and Chris. We are facing a stage which, when illuminated with purple, red, and pink lights, distracts our vision from the Sears tower (a backdrop to this festival) to a stage of metal rods & boards. The sun is setting behind us and stratus clouds - no longer the cumulus clouds that threatened rain during performance of Yeasayer- highlight a pale violet sky. It is a calm evening and the bodies that swarm around my curly haired sister-in-laws are comforting in 60 degree weather.
Behind me settles what I think might be a bit of a rowdy crowd. They are a group of five boys- probably my age- holding their brim filled cups of beer high in the air like waitresses do when they are afraid of being bumped. The boy directly behind me looks more like he belongs in Wrigley field than this concert- which on one hand I highly appreciate. He does not fit here- bright blue oversized cubs shirt, baseball cap, and generous sized body among tiny, thin boys in skinny jeans and hipster glasses smoking joints. His voice is raspy like he's been yelling all day. I wonder if he will be that guy who talks throughout the entire performance.
The National enters the stage and immediately there is a roar of the crowd. Much unlike the several Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, and Patty Griffin concerts of my past, this roar is full of testosterone and men's fists pump into the air. It includes the roar of the Cub's fan behind me- his voice trying to defy it's hoarseness. The National begins and it is a surreal moment that in time will crescendo with the aid of a trumpet and a madman playing violin. In the first three bars of the song, I am clutching my chest. I forgot how this band can make me sob if my heart is ungaurded. How it was the only cd on repeat that carried me in my little car all through last summer. Rachel laughs at me and squeezes my arm. We begin to sway and eventually bounce at the knees. I realize the Cub's fan behind me is also clutching his chest. The singer begins to sing and the Cub's fan sings along. Wait, no, he is harmonizing. He knows every word. He is on pitch. He is having a moment too. He is beyond me in this moment. This is his moment. Usually I am annoyed with people who sing along at concerts. I didn't pay $35 to hear some unknown sing. The Cub's fan, however, only heightens the energy and beauty of this performance.
I am not a music writer so I will not do much justice to the amazing performance I experienced by writing about stanzas, pitches, and some other technical terms. What I will comment on is the energy that spilled from the stage onto the crowd and the way it bubbled over everyone so that they called out in unison during those climatic moments of each song (because each song of The National is a private little set of fireworks unto their own). The way that there was always someone in the crowd jumping up in down, waving their hands furiously into the air like they were at a Baptist revival. Rachel excitedly pointed each one out to me as though the were little shooting stars among us. Most of all, in that very moment, I realize that I was at a place where I wanted nothing else but for the band to bring on another song and then another. I want nothing else but for them to keep singing, keep energizing us, keep us in awe. And they do. Until 10 pm and then they are gone.
Didn't anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room?
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