Can you guys believe I attended two local concerts lately, and haven't yet bitched about them? It's coming don't worry. You know I have plenty to complain about. But other things first because they've been invading my thoughts like the plague. Relationship wise. Male need to protect at all cost. Is this a...biological instinct that remains from primitive times? Is this a hero instinct? Maybe protecting reputation? Proving their worth? Is it also just plain and simple fear or losing those you love? I've been thinking, many times...women don't want protectors (sure in some cases but not all the time), white horses and knights in shining armours. Women just want men they can rely on, men that love them, are there for them, men that listen, men that care. We're all a bit of a romantic, we all want those big romantic gestures, we all let our men ''save'' us from time to time, to make them feel like the hero but...what if this need to protect ends up pulling you apart?
Are you familiar with the work of Sergio Cupido, Romeo and Juliet? Two lovers pulled apart? Kinda like that. Beautiful artwork so amazingly captured by Sergio, the raw emotion, it's longing, pain, suffering. So what if the need to protect is just that? When your heart tells you one thing, and your mind another? In a way forbidden, impossible love just like Romeo and Juliet, is it not?
It made me think, what do I even crave? Long for? A love so deep it would make the ocean envious. Breathless passionate kisses, with whispered promises. The feeling of...you know when suddenly all the love songs make sense, because you don't listen to them the same as you did, because suddenly, all of them are about a certain person. The kind of feelings writers write novels about...I crave a day when I can go back to drinking coffee, and stop putting milk in it just to match his eyes. Sometimes I crave simpler things, slow morning kisses that turn into more, hands roaming and worshipping every inch of your body. And sometimes I crave things that are completely impossible, for life to go back to normal, for most, not all but most, of the events in the past 5 years to never happen. To be able to swap my heart and brain for another liver, so I can drink more and think / feel less. I crave for the world to be a nicer kinder more accepting place, but that seems like the biggest fantasy of all. Maybe if we draw the line under all my sensless ramblings, we'll realise all I really crave and long for is happiness, but then again who doesn't?
I don't know I guess I could also write what I don't crave? I won't. If I did, this would turn into a long ass post full of whining and complaining, and I know it's the last thing you guys want, just as much as it ties to this post, I don't think I crave live music as much no more. Concerts used to be everything I loved and craved but now...I think people kinda ruined that for me, like they do all good things in life. Concerts feel more like a chore, like something you have to do as opposed to something you want to do. When we put aside that all my favourites are avoiding Europe as is (I'm looking at you MCR and ATL), and the one biggest event of the year that I was looking forward to for a year was cancelled...all I got are local gigs and I think I wrote about those too many times. They are torture.
I'll keep the complaints short. The first concert last month I was basically dragged to. All of the above aside, I don't really listen to the artist. In the past I used to love going to shows, giving a new (new for me that is) artist a fair chance, and then decide if I hate it or love it...lately not so much. I guess I'm easy or cheap, and you can buy me with cupons for free craft beer. However I was pleasantly surprised, this singer was...very much our local version of Bruce Springsteen. You know what I mean? Fantastic musicians in his band, amazing raspy voice, and songs with lyrics you could each use as a whole movie script. People forget it's not just the music, lyrics should be equally important and I'm sorry but that whole, fuck me, lick me, suck me, type songs just do nothing to me. I want deep, profound, I want love, devotion, obsession. Music is supposed to move your soul not just your body.
Now the bad part of it all, the people. I HATE HATE HATE the people in general, but mostly people at local shows. Don't get me wrong, I'm no saint, I love to let my hair down, drink a cold beer, or two, or three, but what I don't do is stand in the front row, back to the stage the entire time, taking fucking selfies, hang on socials, videochat, talk so loud that you bother people around you because they can hear you OVER the music. Disrespectful to the artist. I want to slap every asshole behaving like this. And it's like a cultural thing, people come out to drink, to get drunk, to bother girls there alone and what's worse they bring their brats! I can not stand it. Please tell me since when are 9 pm shows considered playground for children ages 2 and up. Please pray tell what the fuck is wrong with parents having their offspring on their shoulders, UNDER the overhead speakers not only blocking the view for the rest of us which essentially makes you an asshole but also, no ear covers? Are you an idiot? This is rhetorical. I know you are. This is beyond irritating and it's making local shows hell. It's making them a chore. Lets not even get into support. Do you people know why support bands exist? To warm up the crowd, to get them excited, to maybe give a new unknown artist opening for a bigger star a chance to introduce them to a bigger audience. And what do people do? Not show up, ignore, TALK. I can not stand it. Each and every artist up there is giving his / her all for ungrateful people that might as well sit at home, drink and have youtube playing in the back. It's essentially the same only it's not ruining the experience for the rest of us. Actual music lovers. I know what this is though, most of the tickets were given free and the people that grabbed them? Selfish horrible people, took the chance for someone who would deserve it more and actually enjoy it. Lately it feels more like it's about being seen than actually doing anything purely because you want to. I miss the 80s also btw, when the sky was full of lighters not cellphones.
Moving on. Second concert. A festival. I love the obvious lack of children on it and I love how the whole city center is closed down and turns into festival grounds, shops, bars, several stages, amazing. It's an annual thing, and I used to pretty much attend it each year, it was tradition with my dad, I guess lately...traditions mean little. I know I should do more to keep them going, but sometimes the very basic ''keep going'' feels impossible. It's a festival arranged by the local brewing company, and it was always free, that changed since Heineken bought it. Ironic isn't it? Huge company, tons of money, and they start charging the festival that a local small almost broke brewery always kept going for free. You can imagine that that choice lowered the amount of people going. But tell you what? Thank God. Thank God they got tickets and thank God there's less people, because people are unbearable and I can't tell you the amount of times I was pushed, hit, spilled on, hit on, or groped by drunk assholes before, who essentially only went to you guessed it, get drunk. Now when the entrance fee is what people call expensive (it really isn't 30 eur per day and you get the best artists in the region, out of who one will cost you more than 30 eur per concert) they're gone, and the rest of us can enjoy the music. Thank God, Satan and Judas for that. It was getting really boring to move out of the way, to keep an eye out for the crowd more than the stage, to get beer stains out of my clothes the next day...I swear I have a pair of cowboy boots that once took the hit that STILL reek of beer. But okay, the kid that spilled that on me at least had the decency to feel bad, tried to dry out my shoes with his hoody and bought me a drink. I'd be rude saying they're all assholes. Just. Most of them.
All the memories of the festival are pretty blurry and a mess I can't tell you who I watched when, not because I'd drink, sad reality is last year I had to be the only 100% sober person there (driver) which made dealing with humanity harder. But I can tell you they had Airborne once and it was freaking amazing. This year? Baby Lasagna my beloved. Before you come after me with Eurovision preformers, let me point out Baby is Croatian and I knew of him before he even set foot on that Eurovision stage. And before we get political, I don't care why each preformer stood on stage instead of boycott, we all know that entire EU boycotting it will never happen, I did because it was important to me, but I'd never expect the artists to do the same, the real question here isn't why they were there, the real question is why one specific country was. But that's besides the point. Marko only did a few songs, I assume he was awfully tired, he came straight from Exit festival...and I missed the begining of the set because our public transportation is absolutely fucked. Hey here's a thought, dearest wanna be green politicians, why don't people use trains? I don't know...could it perhaps be the fact that THERE ARE NO TRAINS?! I was livid, I was angry, I was seething, and I was even angrier over the fact that people mope and complain, yet when they should complain to employees they are fucking silent, I end up being the only barking bitch in the fence, and I end up the rude one. Are you kidding me?! But I did get to hear my beloved ''Rim tim tagi dim'' and the brand new song with a video that just makes my soul happy, so that was worth the sauna that was last week. Seriously again, is this Europe or is this 10th circle of Dantes Inferno? You can catch videos on my IG (purpleskyline) just some quick pics, straight off the phone, unedited, I am lazy sorry.
