It
wasn’t really anything I’d planned on. The week before, my mom – my godsend,
really – had told me that a band I liked was playing at a venue not 15 minutes
from my house. I rolled my eyes with adolescent apathy, but if she’d known how
much I was jumping up and down inside I definitely would have been the subject
of THE embarrassing story at the next family reunion.
See,
here’s the thing: my mother thought I liked this band. Secretly, I ADORED this
band. Their music was so powerful, their lyrics so intense and dedicated to
overcoming whatever obstacles that life laid before them. My circumstances
being what they were I could identify with them very easily. A Skylit Drive did
more than play instruments, more than release a couple of CD’s. Their music had
– and to this day, still has – a profound impact on my life.
And
when I say I hadn’t planned on it, I didn’t just mean going to that concert. I
meant falling in love with those six guys and the sound they produced. Because
without Michael “Jag” Jagmin, Brian White, Kyle Simmons, Joey Wilson, Nick
Miller, and Cory LaQuay, I wouldn’t be here typing this today. In fact, I
wouldn’t even be in Texas.
I
would be in my family’s plot, pushing up daisies in Western Missouri with an
epitaph that read “1991-2009.”
You’re
probably wondering why. I mentioned a particularly nasty breakup in my third
and fourth sketches. And the reason that the ending of that relationship still
resonates in my mind today is because after it ended my thoughts gradually turned
to suicide. Looking back it chills me, how logically I had thought it out. How
dispassionate I was towards the ending of my own life.
But,
on a night when the moon seemed hung by a noose I had my iTunes on shuffle, my
letter in my pocket, and my knife against my wrist, ready to make those vertical
cuts that would take away the lifeblood that coursed through veins so
stubbornly. And right when I was about to make the incision, a song from A
Skylit Drive came on. It was beautiful, it was haunting, and it was the only
thing that could possibly have stopped me. “Breathe easy, the doctors are about
to arrive,” it said. There was this frisson I couldn’t shake, this aural
feeling, this sense that things were about to turn for the better.
I
couldn’t. I couldn't do it.
All
this to say – A Skylit Drive was on a pedestal in my mind. I knew one of the
things I had to do before I died was to see them. And I also knew my parents
would rather die than see me at this venue alone. But I’d never been to a
concert without my parents before, and this was one I promised myself that I
wouldn’t miss. So a couple days later I told my mother that a girl from my
computer imaging class wanted to go with me, and off I went, excited beyond
belief.
It
was a dingy place they were playing at. About the size of a garage, and about
as sparsely furnished. Concrete floors, with no evidence of cleaning.
Industrial ceilings that coughed up dust. A small stage, only about two feet
high. But enough to elevate the music, to lift the noise, to raise a voice.
I
walked in, naïve, and surveyed my surroundings. The back of a tattoo parlor. I
guess I shouldn’t have expected much. But my hopes returned when I saw the
racks of t-shirts on the east wall. I’d never gotten a band’s t-shirt before –
in my haze of happiness I’d forgotten completely that they were even sold at
concerts.
I
walked over to the racks. I hemmed and I hawed. The guy stacking the shirts
looked at me as I pondered my decision. Finally I tapped him on the shoulder and
asked him for the one on the bottom left, in a medium.
“Oh
yeah! You like A Skylit Drive?” he said. Instantly I said yes and gushed for a
few seconds about how they were my favorite band and they’d helped me through some
stuff.
To
which he responded, “Thanks!”
I
was instantly confused. Why would he say
thanks? Is he like a merch guy or like a roadie for them? I asked him if he
hauled their gear for them or if he was their manager.
His
response will forever ring in my ears.
“Nah,
nah man. I play bass for them.”
WHAT.
WHAT. WHAT IS…WHAT.
In
some sense of the word, I fainted. In another sense, I’d just been reborn.
After I could compose myself enough to tell him some of the ways he’d helped
me, and listed off a few songs that really meant a lot, he then proceeded to
make that night the best one of my life: “Hey, you mentioned Eris and Dysnomia?
Well we’re playing that in our set. I’m gonna dedicate it to you.”
I
could have melted through the floor with all the joy in my soul. The feeling
was indescribable. It was as though I was being frozen and immolated entirely
at the same time. I was too excited to cry, too stunned to emote. The most I
could squeak out was a “Thank…” and then I just stood there, foolishly, like a
mannequin.
He
asked me my name and then whisked himself backstage. Then the opening bands
came on and for a few minutes I almost forgot about the monolith of memory that
still jutted out of my brain. But then Cory LaQuay, the drummer for A Skylit
Drive, came out. And I actually recognized him from the music videos. I yelled
his name and ran on over. We got to talking and I’d mentioned that I’d played
drums for a couple months. To top all that had previously happened, he asked if
I wanted to go backstage with him to see his drum kit.
It
was beautiful. I’ll never forget the shine, because I don’t know whether it
came from the glitter on the drums or the tears in my eyes.
It
was one of the best nights of my life. I’ll never forget it. And the story
continued to write itself even after that. I’ve left details out, but I went into
that concert a boy and I came out a man.
It’s
a night I’ll never forget. The first time I saw Waco use me and spit me out better
for it, as opposed to worse. I was polished, glorious like the sun.
I
don’t believe I’ve ever thanked my mother so much as when I got home that
night.
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