The Moon

The awesome thing about going to a show, esp when you are young and still in school is the feeling you get awaiting the next one. I was young so it was hard to get rides to every show I wanted to get to but if I knew one was coming up all I could think about that week or so was going to it. I used to sit in school a lot and think about all of the kids around me. I was straightedge at the time, I claimed when I was 14 years old in 8^th grade and it was because I saw what drugs did first hand to members of my extended family and it was something that I had zero interest in. All of the kids in High School were getting into drinking, drugs and whatever the fuck else they were doing and I really felt special about myself from abstaining from those things. It made me feel important and positive in a time where I needed it the most. Growing up in today’s day and age can be hard, even when you are a privileged suburban white kid. Trust me, everyone has problems no matter their social economic status, race, religion or what have you. Being straightedge and going to shows made me feel different from everyone else and I loved it because they had noooooooooo idea what I did outside of school. I knew what they did, and I know what they still do. The other day I was talking to my friend Jonathan about going to shows in New Brunswick NJ. NB is the home of Rutgers University where thousands upon thousands of kids go every year, and on top of that there’s thousands of kids who just live in NB because its’ cheap and affordable. On any given night there can be a show going on somewhere in a basement, maybe 50 kids will come. All 50 of those kids have a pretty good idea of what every other college / non college kid is doing in town at that time. Drinking, smoking, partying, video games, homework, working…there’s a million things you can think of that everyone else is doing. Take all of those kids and tell them to make a list of what they think other people are doing in New Brunswick at that time…I’m sure all of them will mention the things that I just mentioned plus more…but how many of them are going to write down “Watching a hardcore punk bands in a basement with touring bands from all over the country / world” How many of them are even going to come up with “watching live music in a basement with a bunch of friends and / or people you don’t know.” Very few…if any at all...the point I’m trying to get at, is that when I was younger, I thrived off this feeling. When Friday night rolled around, I knew what all the kids that sat next to me in class were doing but when I walked out those doors and got in a car to go to a show…for all they know, I could be on the moon. They had no idea that I’d be going to a place where hundreds of kids from ALL over the state and even others were coming for one common reason. They had no idea that I was going to be in a room with people twice my age, who have been going to shows longer than I’ve been alive smashing me and everyone else around me. They had no clue that I might see someone get beat up with a barstool at Club Krome, or some white power kids get the shit kicked out of them at Birch Hill. They had no idea that I had a whole network of friends outside of school from towns in New Jersey and Philadelphia that I would never even know existed if it wasn’t for them. I’d end up in the sketchiest areas of Philly going to shows that my parents would kill me if they knew I went with my friends… shows for me were an escape from the world I hated. My school, my classmates, teachers….everyone that I was around bothered me and going to shows every couple of weeks when I could find rides was just what I needed to release all the energy I had that I couldn’t elsewhere. When kids in high school asked me what I did that weekend on Monday morning I never really gave them an answer, a few kids I would, but I didn’t want them to know…. That all was my secret and as far as I was concerned it wasn't any of their business because they just would not have understood even if i explained it 100 times.