grey clouds over a grey ocean, wet sand and a grey boardwalk

Before the show

I am sitting alone at the Ethel Cain show, and I guess I'm making this a thing now? It is nice to have somthing to do with my hands while waiting for a show to start. Although I am a lot more comfortable than I was waiting for the Evanescence show aka there isn't a tall obnoxious dude standing behind me talking about his dick. Instead I have two sweet teens sitting to the left of me, and one of them is telling the other that they are going to start crying as soon as Ethel comes on stage. I have seen a lot of sweet teens so far, which I guess is to be expected, and I expect a lot of them are going to cry during this show. I'm not sure if I am going to cry tonight - I know in my last post that I said I was a two song crier, so I guess this is a chance to test that theory. I am wearing the t-shirt I bought at that Evanescence show, which feels like a nice, strong connecting thread.

Before heading into the theatre I decided to walk down to the beach and look at the ocean for a bit, because it felt like the right thing to do - the day had been so hot, and then it had rained a bit, and when I arrived the sun was setting behind the still half-full clouds, and it felt like the perfect atmosphere for an Ethel Cain show - hot, sticky, and steel grey. So I walked down to the beach, and when I got there counted three or four different groups of teens taking photos of each other against the backdrop of the overcast sea. It made me smile, and reminded me of the time my friends and I lined up for hours in front of festival hall to see panic! at the disco, and to pass the time we started taking pictures of each other on our pocket-sized digital cameras. And once that got boring, we took turns going for walks, taking pictures like the ones we'd seen posted on DeviantArt; the view from the bridge over the train tracks, and the old two story town houses from different angles. I can still see those photos we took, I remember them so much better than anything that happened at the Panic! at the Disco show.

After the show

First thing's first; I did not cry during the second song, (although I did get close). I think maybe it has something to do with it being 'American Teenager' a song that meant much more to so many other people there than it meant to me. Don't get me wrong, I really like that song, but I am surrounded by people who LOVE that song (incluiding the two sweet teens, one of whom is crying just like she said she would.) It almost feels like I'm intruding on something, or like I know that I cannot match what other people are feeling so I am too embarrassed to try. What the hell is that about? (Probably something to discuss with my therapist, actually.)

That's not to say I didn't have any kind of visceral reaction - in fact I think I am still having it. I'd spent the first part of the set really enjoying myself, but also waiting for it to get heavier - the potential to see the heavy tracks live, from both 'Peacher's Daughter' and 'Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You', was what had made me want to buy a ticket in the first place. And it did get heavier, first with Dust Bowl, which might be my favourite song on 'Willoughby Tucker', or at least the song that gets stuck in my head the most. And once it shifted into a track from 'Perverts', I knew we were in the part I had come for, but by that time I felt like I was too in my head to enjoy it. And then I realised, about halfway through the Punish demo, that I'd started smiling, like proper grinning like a fucking idiot. It was so weird, almost like an out of body experience, or maybe more like my body taking over and responding to the music where my brain could not.

I carried that feeling through the rest of the show, and then out through the pouring rain to the tram stop afterwards. I stood dripping on the platform with other elated, shivering fans, but I couldn't really feel the cold. I felt disconnected, but not in a bad way - disconnected from the reality, perhaps, in that way that good art can make you feel, like you've been transported somewhere else and you'd like to stay there for a bit longer. And now I am sitting at my kitchen table, writing this all down so I can try and figure why it feels like something inside me has fundamentally shifted. And now I am thinking that maybe in trying to figure it out, I'm kind of missing the point. That maybe instead of trying to think my way through it, I should just let my body take over for a bit.



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