There is something to music, to bands, and to live/gigs/concerts/shows that unites. Whatever you call them, gigs in England, concerts in Malaysia, shows in America, Live in Japan, whatever name or label that is given to this participation in the cesspool of flesh and sweat bound together by the chords of the band playing on stage-- whatever its name-- the sensation, the feelings, the pull towards this-- is all and the same.
I don't know how to explain it to friends. Why, why, why I just can't just stop going for shows. Why just listening to songs on the radio ain't enough. Why, why, why, lately, I just keep having to go to Japan to see these bands.
How do you explain that when I listen to a song, I just don't hear the sound engineered mesh of chords and melodies. That when I listen to a song and it moves me, that all I can feel and imagine is how it would feel like, this imploding feeling in my heart being multiplied a hundred folds, pressed together with 1000 other people, the music bursting in my ears and the band, real, in front of me.
How do you explain the feeling of being there in a mosh pit, with the music, with the people and with the band-- all meshed together bound and crushed together in one breath with one beat. How do you explain a feeling like that? How do you explain why, why, why, that one imagination, that one feeling, pulls me so intensely?
I can't explain it, except to say that....... I loved it, I loved it all. And it was in that breathlessness, with your heart bursting forth from within, feeling like you're dying, suffocating, afraid that you're gonna die, actually, fearing of being crushed, kicked or trampled to death, but still, feel so alive.
I'm glad that in my lifetime I've had the privilege to meet soulmates who feel this same draw and force and hear the same call of the mosh pit in our hearts. Who Understands. Who Knows.-- whether it is Robbie whom I met online at Punkrockvids on MIRC, or Luis, Michelle, Wendy, Melissa, Johanna in America, Fuji in Japan, or Ame in Hong Kong--- I want to believe that we're all soulmates...
That no matter where we are from, no matter which country, which language, which experience we were from, we stand together as one, under the banner of this music, of this band.
It was an immense feeling when I stood there in Lunkhead's moshpit, on that cloudy June summer day, on the rooftop of Tower Records Shinjuku, for their 5th Album release special live. There's something incredible to Japanese lives, simply because one has to witness it for oneself, the sight of a thousand hands all raised together, cheering on the same beat, as one whole unified wave of hands with the beats of a song. There is something fundamentally human to all that.
Standing there alone, feeling so foreign in this crowd, totally not understanding a single thing that was being said both on stage and around me or what is even being sung. But when we stood there together, looking at this band, and when we sang and danced and cheered together as one for this band, with this band, with them, with us-- I felt united-- united with all these strangers-- like with the intensity of our hearts we were bound together to each other and with this band through their music; we, foreigners, natives, fans, band alike, all became one big family.
And I still feel the same way when I meet fans of Lunkhead online, that we may come from Malaysia, America, Hong Kong or Japan, and sometimes, we couldn't even communicate properly--- but, with this one band, with the love for this same music, we smile, we smile because we understood this feelings that we shared in our hearts.
I think this video here is a good... summary... of that unity, of that singleness, when you're in a pit as fans united under the banner of one band together in one song. It's taken from Tsubaki's latest live video, and it's all of these crowd just clapping in TOTAL UNISON with the band, like was all just one clap... It's not a simple clap, you know, there's a beat to it, yet yet.... Just imagine how many times the fans have heard that one song to be able to clap like that! hahahaha...
I think that is the beauty of mosh pits. Not just the utter draw to the intensity of the feeling of being drowned with a sea of people and with the breathlessness of screaming to this music. That in this, in this empowering enveloping mesh of racing heartbeats, gasps of air, screaming at the top of your lungs, throwing yourself into the intensity of the moment there with these people and with the band your love with the songs that sang your heart-- there, there, is where we live. Is where we really feel alive.
And I am glad, I'm glad I've found such friends who share; actually, who understands, this feeling that I feel, that I miss so very much, in my heart.
I wish, I wish my friends here could understand these feelings. I wish they knew what the mosh pit meant to me. How if the feelings of a Taking Back Sunday mosh pit could be rolled into a pill, I would take some everyday!
I wish I could live my life in that pit. I wish that the vocation of my life could put in pits every day of every week, or at least, somewhere close to the calling lights of that crowd... That at this moment, listening to Tsubaki's Aimai na Yoru on my radio, I could just close my eyes, and imagine, how wonderful, how wonderful, what breath it would be to take, standing there with all these crazy Tsubaki fans in the pit, seeing, hearing Isshiki Noriyasu sing... And we look up and we smile, and we voice our hearts together with him with his words, and we reach out, and we cheer together, and we sing, and we smile.... I wish I could see him sing everyday... I wish I could see him sing right now.
I remember during that Lunkhead live on the rooftop that summer day, and the infamous Japan June rain threatening to reign down upon us with fury, the sky was overcast, cloudy and gray... getting darker and darker as we sang and united louder and louder... Yet, that reliable June rain never came. And I remember, when the show was over, Ishikawa Ryou, the drummer of Lunkhead, stood a final moment on stage and uttered these words that my Japanese 101 comprehension even understood, "Your power and our power combined has held the rain up."
And yes, it certainly felt that way that day. And yes, I believe that too... that in that moment when we are all locked up in an arena, club or live house together, as our collective breath gathered and accumulated, there was that power: your power, my power, our power combined.
And it is this that sits in our hearts, that pulls us, that calls us-- as we long and wait for the moment to be there in the next pit.
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