There are moments at a metal show when I find myself looking around almost as much as I’m looking at the stage. A part I’ve been waiting for comes in, the crowd reacts, and I start noticing the faces around me. For a little while I feel ridiculously fond of people whose names I don’t know and probably never will. I want them to be having as good a time as I am. It’s a strange feeling to try to explain to someone who hears the music and wonders what the fuck any of us are so angry about, particularly because some of us probably are angry. That doesn’t stop us being glad to see each other.
Anger was part of what brought me there. I didn’t always know quite what I was angry at, and having to explain it would’ve meant producing an account of myself I wasn’t able to give. There could be frustration with the world, discomfort I couldn’t name, and the exhausting business of trying to work out where I fitted, all mixed together until I couldn’t tell which part I was reacting to. The music didn’t require me to separate any of that before I could enjoy it. I could hear somebody sounding as furious as I felt and feel less alone, even when the words had nothing to do with whatever was happening in my life.
I found solace in that anger. A voice that sounded strained or harsh didn’t strike me as something that needed calming down before it could be worth listening to. I liked that it was allowed to sound that way. It gave me somewhere to bring a feeling I hadn’t managed to make reasonable, including the times I couldn’t explain it to myself. That wasn’t permission to take it out on the people around me. In fact, part of what I loved was being able to feel it alongside people I liked. I could be furious and have company without needing to find somebody in the room to be furious with.
But I wasn’t arriving at every show in distress, and I don’t want to turn every record I loved into evidence of how unhappy I must have been. Sometimes I was excited about a riff or a drum part, or delighted that something so intricate could sound so fucking vicious. I wanted to hear it again and pay attention to a different bit. Anger was welcome, but so were enthusiasm, curiosity, and the uncomplicated pleasure of music I thought was good. Metal and punk gave me room for feelings that didn’t always fit elsewhere, including being embarrassingly excited about something other people thought was awful.
The clothes helped in a quieter way. Baggy shirts and loose clothes let me keep more of my body to myself at a time when I didn’t particularly want attention drawn to it. I could wear something I was comfortable in without feeling so exposed, and it also connected me to the music and the people around it. A band name was something I was happy to have somebody notice. They could find out what I liked without my having to offer much else. There was relief in that combination, being able to belong somewhere while keeping parts of myself out of view. I wasn’t ready to explain everything, and I appreciated having something else to talk about.
A conversation about music didn’t need to begin with the things I couldn’t articulate. I could have an opinion about a song, ask what somebody else was listening to, or enjoy finding out we liked the same record. That sounds ordinary, and it was, but I needed ordinary ways of connecting as much as I needed anybody to understand the difficult parts. I didn’t want every attempt at friendship to involve explaining what was wrong. There was plenty about me that wasn’t a problem, and the music gave me a way to share some of it. I could be interested in somebody else too, instead of spending the whole time worrying about how I was coming across.
Being in a mosh pit made that connection physical. I liked the movement, the release of throwing myself into what I was hearing, the fact that other people wanted to do it too. From outside, bodies knocking into each other can look like a fight. What I wanted from it depended on an understanding that we were participating together rather than trying to hurt each other. If somebody fell, you helped them up, and if they wanted out, you let them out. I expected that consideration to be part of what we were doing, and it was part of why I could enjoy the roughness. I wasn’t interested in being somebody’s excuse to take a swing, and I didn’t want somebody else to become mine.
That kind of care requires paying attention while you’re having fun. You have to notice the person in front of you as well as whatever the band is doing, and recognise when the situation has changed. Someone needing help is more important than keeping the movement going. I like how practical that is. You don’t have to know why they’re there or whether you’re ever going to speak again before you help them to their feet. I find something genuinely affectionate in that willingness to interrupt your own enjoyment, especially in a space where a certain amount of being knocked about is what we came for.
I wouldn’t pretend every crowd lives up to that. A band shirt doesn’t prevent somebody from being an asshole, and calling a scene welcoming doesn’t make every person feel welcome in it. The care I’m describing depends on people actually doing it. It isn’t something the music supplies automatically, and I don’t want my affection for these places used to dismiss someone who was hurt in one. I can love what I found without insisting that everyone found the same thing. If anything, knowing how much the support meant to me gives me more reason to care when somebody else is being denied it.
There’s a different kind of closeness when the crowd starts singing. I can hear people around me reaching for the same words, but I have no idea what they’re bringing to them. One person might be remembering somebody they miss while the person next to them is hearing the song live for the first time, with no particular sadness attached to it at all. There doesn’t have to be a private story behind every voice. Enjoying the sound of everyone joining in can be enough. I’m there with whatever the song means to me, singing beside people who may never have heard it that way. We can share the whole thing without agreeing on what it is.
Being part of that singing lets me have something intensely private happening without feeling quite so alone in it. Nobody needs the history of a song’s place in my life before they can sing it with me. They don’t even need to notice that anything particular is happening. Their own enjoyment is part of mine, and I hope mine adds something to theirs. We might talk about the night afterward and discover we were moved by completely different things. I’d like hearing that, finding out a little about an experience I’d shared without quite knowing what it had been for them.
Some of that affection is as simple as seeing how openly other people are enjoying themselves. A shared look when a familiar song starts can be the whole exchange, and I like that neither of us has to turn it into anything more. There’s no need to exchange numbers or promise to keep in touch for the company to have been welcome. Sometimes I’m grateful for somebody being beside me for the length of a song, and that’s enough.
I don’t want to make the music sound less brutal to explain why I found beauty there. I liked the harsh voices and the speed, the weight of the guitars and the physical excitement of being among people responding to them. The kindness wasn’t a reward for putting up with all that. I enjoyed those things together. I could be moved by the sound and by the people sharing it without needing the band to stop being abrasive. Something that looked unwelcoming from a distance could contain a great deal of pleasure for me, and some of that pleasure came from being close enough to notice how other people were treating each other.
Looking at it now, I can understand why those spaces appealed before I understood much about being this version of myself. They let me have company without requiring complete self-knowledge first. I could keep the baggy clothes and the uncertainty, be angry for reasons I hadn’t untangled, and still have something to contribute. That doesn’t mean everybody secretly recognised a woman I hadn’t recognised yet, or that the music was preparing me for transition. I was responding to what was there at the time. I liked these people, liked what we were doing, and found enough acceptance to want to keep coming back.
A show ended, I went home, and whatever I’d been struggling with still needed dealing with. Sometimes I would’ve liked the feeling to last longer. But an evening with other people wasn’t wasted because it couldn’t sort out the rest of my life. I needed experiences I could look forward to and remember fondly, as well as help with the things that were difficult. Having a good time was allowed to be one of the ways I got through, without my needing to dress it up as anything more serious.
I’m still drawn to those rooms. I understand more of what I bring with me now, but I haven’t stopped enjoying the company of people who are there for reasons I might never know. I want us to look after each other well enough that we can enjoy what we came for, whether that means helping someone up or letting them move away from the pit without making a fuss. Mostly, though, I’m watching the band and noticing the people around me, glad somebody else looks as pleased to be there as I am. I hope they get to hear the song they came for. I’d like to be standing nearby when they do.
Sign in to comment