ryca

September 23, 1992.

My father picked me up early from school. I was hopping and skipping – convulsively dancing – with joy.

My friend Martha stared at me, one eyebrow cocked. “You gonna be ok? Why are you so excited, anyway?”

“Why am I excited? We’re gonna see GUNS N’ ROSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why aren’t you more excited????”

Martha shrugged.

We got in the car and drove to Sarah’s house to pick her up. Thankfully, she was hopping and skipping and squealing, too.

We put on our makeup and brushed our hair in the car. “I can’t wait to see Axl!” “I wanna see Slash!”

Martha rolled her eyes.

We got stuck in traffic, but made it to the Oakland Coliseum in time (“in time” being “well before Body Count even took the stage”).

“Buds! Doses! Buds! Doses!” one man called out as he walked. Another man held a large Ziploc baggy filled with something green in one hand, and another bag filled with something white in the other. Sarah and I goggled at each other, speechless.

We made our way down to the lawn and stood, giggling and talking and looking around. My dad stood quietly behind us, giving the evil eye to every shirtless guy who walked past, and interjecting the occasional commentary.

“You know girls, you can tell a lot about weed by the way it smells, and the pot we’re standing next to right now is much better quality than the pot we were next to a minute ago.”

“…”

Our three faces slowly swiveled around, slack-jawed, while my clean-cut father made innocent eyes at us. “What?”

Finally, Ice-T walked on stage and started swearing. The show had begun.

Nine hours from when we arrived, after Body Count, after Metallica, after Guns N’ Roses, well after my father had dragged us from the maelstrom on the lawn to the relative safety of the bleacher seats, after the screaming and the singing and the screaming again, we sagged our way towards the car wearing our brand-new shirts. The next day, my father would write about the experience, beginning with the phrase “Never in my life had I wished so hard for rain…”

It was everything I’d dreamed it could be.

Twenty years later, I don’t get dressed up for concerts anymore. Jeans, comfortable boots, no purse. You might mistake me for that blasé, eye-rolling Martha as I stroll towards the venue, sometime after the opening band has begun. I stop and get a drink, swing past the merchandise booth.

Then I walk in to the main area, and I pause. I breathe in, that sweet concert smell. I look at the crowds, and eat their energy. I blink at the lasers and the lights. I smile at the band, like they can see me, like they’re an old friend.

I let the music roll over me, and eventually, every time, I feel a moment of perfect peace and contentment, a moment of anoesis - that state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without thought – and I tilt my head back and look up.

“Thank you” I whisper. “Thank you, thank you, thank you”.

My friend and I turn to each other. We clink our beers together, and smile.

We say “May the peace be with you.”

“And with you also.”

We drink, and we start to dance.

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