It’s Friday November 3rd, and I was supposed to go on a date. I had originally bought two tickets to this concert, thinking I would go with a friend. She couldn’t come in the end, so I decided it could be fun to go on a date instead. Everything was supposed to go as planned, but this guy I was gonna go with (let’s not say his name, he’s pretty irrelevant) was flighty and cancelled at the last minute. It was too late to go with anyone. Why don’t I just go alone? I thought. After all, it’s a concert. No one will be paying any attention to me. At least that’s what I told my social anxiety. So I did.
I arrived at the venue (Paradiso) a few minutes late and went straight up the stairs. I walked over to the bar and got a beer (To be fair, I had one earlier with some friends who had other plans, which is probably why I had the liquid courage to do all of this). I had a plan. If I had a beer in my hand and pointed to the front, I could pass as somebody looking for their friend. And it worked. As I made my way, going “Sorry, my friend” and “Sorry, friend’s over there”, nobody questioned it. After all, how often does one go to a concert alone? I got there towards the end of the first song of their set, “Somersault.” I knew maybe three or four songs, mainly from their third album, Sublime. I wasn’t planning on writing about this night, but halfway through the set, I took a look around. I saw people hypnotized, smiling, jumping up and down and no phones in sight. I have to write about this.