It is round the minute no. 50 of the concert, when everybody is feeling more friendly, and there is no distinct separation between musician, audience and music played, and those persons who yearned to kiss each other for so long have finally managed to do so, and you can see in the eyes of other couples the spark of a promising night, and everybody has surrendered to rhythm (which is everything), and melodies are no longer sound but rather some sort of invisible movement, almost tangible…
It is on that moment that the battery starts an in crescendo break and you wonder, in a distant way because in those moments you are but your own dance, where does that guy get the strength for that, and then you yell, you yell your heart out with a smile of satisfaction, to become yourself a part of that battery break, and that yell is a primal yell.
Needless to say, the other night I went to a concert. It was a magical moment. Something that had sort of reared in isolated moments now and then reached its full manifestation. Something changed forever.
I realized that primal forces inside us can only be conveyed in two ways: either you dance with your fellows, either you squash them. I prefer dancing.
(There is another option, sadly common I guess: denying the existence of such forces. But then you get poisoned, live sick, and die miserable).
Human beings work as a community. From the very moment when you’re born, you need being taken care of. You also get satisfaction from taking care of others. We need each other from the cradle to the grave. When there’s nothing better to do, when we cannot fulfill our need in a better way, then we kill each other. As a simple excuse to come together. Like the old saying states, violence is the final resource of incompetents. And who hasn’t been an incompetent some time?
So I’d rather be dancing.
In my conversations with musicians, actors or performers of any kind, it often surprises me the poor concept they have of their own job, of the utility of what they do. Many times, they even talk of their artistic passion as of something that makes them feel embarrassed, as if they had to defend themselves from the accusation of some narcissist whim, or apologizing for producing wireless, sort of “second class” entertainment.
I don’t think so. A screen cannot give you what live performance of any kind does. Not even close. Live art is essential. Think about it: a lot of people who don’t know each other, getting together not to fight, not to compete-against, but to enjoy the same thing, at the same time, once in their life. Think of the sudden, invisible solidarity among people who laugh at the same things. Sport events are fine, but you are still divided into groups, and violence very often sneaks in. In a concert, at the end of a great concert, there is always a delicious feeling of community, I would almost say of communion. And we certainly don’t have plenty of that.
So it is not that I like music, anymore: I need it.
What about you?
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