Front and Center
A story about belonging
I used to volunteer with a crew who set up structures at parties and festivals.
One time, as a perk, they gave me a free ticket to see The Prodigy at a stadium.
None of the other guys could make it, so I figured I’d skip it.
But then, when the night arrived and I was facing the empty couch and five channels of boring, I pulled a bright yellow top over my jeans and donned some pink fingerless fishnet gloves and painted outlines around my eyes.
Watched a pile of mousse grow on my hand and scrunched my hair real curly.
I opened an old jewelry box in the bottom drawer of my desk and found the leftover pill from the previous weekend. I put it in my pocket.
It was past 11 when I entered the venue.
A lot of the supporting acts had already played and the headliners were onstage, playing a song I hadn’t heard before.
Only a sparse smattering of people were at the back of the cavernous space and I paused, swaying in time.
Peered at the tiny figures bouncing around making noise onstage.
My fingers crept into the pocket of my jeans and wrapped around the little baggie inside.
Still watching the stage, I pulled it out and brought it to my other hand, held low so I could gently clasp two plastic edges and tease them apart.
Glancing down, I pursed the sides of the bag together and inserted my index and middle finger to wrap around the little pill.
The taste was bitter and it caught in my throat without water so I swallowed saliva several times and put the bag back where it came from.
Took a deep breath.
Still swaying with the music, I put my right foot forward.
Dancing.
Left foot forward, I made eye contact with a stranger.
Smiling.
He let me dance closer, then past him.
With a spin, I took in the back and the sides of the giant space, grinned and shuffled backwards before turning to sway on towards the front, leaving him to keep dancing with his friends.
I worked through the crowd without touching anyone, ducking and reaching and swirling. Whatever the music told me to do.
By inches and centimeters, I patiently danced my way forward, moving my body into the gaps that grew ever narrower as the bodies grew more and more bunched up and crowded.
By keeping in flow with the music, I stayed fluid, imagining I had a bubble around me.
Another verse, a few more feet forwards, an upbeat chorus, a pause to join the crowd as they jumped in time.
I made friends and immediately lost them.
No need to stay beyond the coarsest connection.
A smile. A touch of the hips. A lean in and then back again.
And onto the next gap.
Surrounded by people but alone.
No one to look out for or check if they were still beside me.
Carried by the music, I was in the thick of it now.
Two thirds of the way up the gigantic stadium crowd.
Jumping to the music. Moshing. Carried by the pressure of a thousand bodies moving as a giant, sweaty organism.
Then, onward.
Even slower now, but still finding gaps like water in a river.
Another few feet. And another.
Always dancing. Finding the spaces created by the movement.
Willing myself forward.
Waiting for no one.
Laughing with a new friend who yelled into my ear, “We’ve been here since 4 o’clock!”
“Awesome!” Genuinely thrilled for the adventure they had been living. But still I stepped into the next empty space that opened before me like a sliver of a gate that beckoned me on.
Time and movement all melded together so I was the music.
I was the beat.
My body and those of everyone around me, all in rhythmic synchrony.
Led by the boys on stage.
Sweating.
Shouting.
Singing.
Jumping.
Creating beautiful noise to move thousands of people in unison.
Like we could melt before them into a writhing, formless mess.
They were close now, looming large like sacred conductors with mohawks and body paint.
I noticed my internal state was turning to bliss.
Everything perfection.
I was close to the front now.
Only a few rows of tight-packed bodies between me and the stage.
Still dancing into the gaps. Finding the space and smiling as people let me through, though they had been here for hours, earning their place close to the musicians.
The priests above us, leading the adoring masses in worship.
I hadn’t earned it.
I was pushing in. Taking space that didn’t belong to me.
But I attained it anyway.
Dancing. My body hot.
Moving to the beat and sliding ever forward.
Until I hit a metal barrier.
Packed with bodies leaning forward.
I found an inch of space and made it my width.
Looked up.
Into the eyes of the lead singer.
He was singing to me.
His voice ripped a hole through me.
The other guy took great strides from one side of the stage to the other. The wall of speakers bursting with sound filled them with power from behind and beside and all around.
They held microphones to their lips and filled the space with melody and harmony and words and beats.
I was in ecstasy.
Moving with the crowd.
In sync with the musicians.
Front and centre.
Where I loved to be and didn’t deserve to be but had somehow arrived at in complete peace and surrender.
By dancing and flowing with the sound and the shared energy.
Being part of the whole but carrying responsibility only for myself.
The set was only just getting started.
They played their biggest hits.
I screamed and sang and reached my pink netted hands up to them like I was their biggest fan.
Dying to touch them.
To feel their musical holiness.
When the set reached its finale and they took their bows, they turned and made way for the next act. I slid off to one side, unattached to the place I had worked so hard to gain.
I kept my eyes on them as they left the stage and slapped each others’ backs and ruffled hair.
Found myself next to a security guard, breathing hard.
“Having fun?” he said.
“Brilliant!” I cried. “You?”
He gave a chuckle and rolled back on his heels. “Yeah, they’re alright.”
“Can I go backstage?” I asked.
He looked me up and down, like I could prove I was worthy by being more shiny.
Or by having a pass.
Which I didn’t.
“No, you can’t,” he said. But then he walked away.
Like he had somewhere to be.
Just a few meters over, talking to someone else.
I watched his back and then stepped past the fence and walked swiftly for the stage door, crossing over to the other side and out of sight.
I found myself in a long corridor with plain, beige walls.
Unglamorous.
Undecorated.
The noise of the crowd was dimmed.
The light was bright and even, devoid of strobes or colors.
I slowed down to a gentle amble.
Came upon an opening onto a larger room and stepped inside.
“You have a pass?” said a gruff voice.
I looked up, smiling. Shifting on my feet like I wanted to dance.
Knowing I wasn’t welcome. Didn’t belong.
“Um…”
“Shoni?”
What the hell?
I looked over to a table where some people were playing cards.
It was the guy who had sold me the pill that was turning my brain into a glitter cave of happy.
“Chris! Hi!” I walked over quickly, not turning back to see the bouncer observing but not moving.
My dealer was there with his paralysed friend, who had a backstage pass to the gig.
I had met the kid in the wheelchair before too. On visits to pick up drugs.
I sat at the table and they introduced me to the others.
For a while, it was fun, but then I got antsy again. Lost patience.
Said goodbye and it was nice to see them and moved on.
Went to another room.
A man was lying on a couch, looking spent.
Dressed down, but with spikes in his hair.
He looked at me.
“Are you in The Prodigy?” I said, with a giant smile.
Not cool.
“Hey, you can’t be in here,” said a voice from behind me.
This time I couldn’t be saved.
I was in the wrong place.
Taking up space that I didn’t belong in.
Breathing air that didn’t belong in me.
The bouncer seemed satisfied with himself as he hustled me back through the large room, back down the long, beige corridor and out to the fence where the same security guard looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.
I shot him a grin of gratitude.
But I was disappointed with myself.
I could have stayed longer if I’d been cooler. Or been someone more important.
Never gush.
Never show you’re impressed.
Oh well. The main hall was still heaving.
I danced all the way back the length of the stadium and out the door I’d come in, all in time to the tunes of the famous DJ that had taken the stage.
Faster and easier in the opposite direction, like rushing down rapids instead of swimming up them like leaping salmon.
The outside air was cool and prickled my face. My ears were already ringing with the echoes of the night. Arriving where I had parked my car, I took a moment to enjoy the feeling of the key sliding into the lock for me, letting me know that I could find shelter inside.
I was safe.
I belonged.
I think if you were pilling then that's a perfectly acceptable excuse to be gushing. Chances are Keith was probably pilling too...
What a fun ride!