Pretending I'm at a Concert with Vinyl

There’s nothing quite like a room going dark and the crowd screaming louder than you thought possible. When a performer walks on stage, it feels like a break from reality. Someone who you love and  have followed exclusively over the Internet is finally there before you, and it makes time stop. Whether it be a stadium or the basement of a party, all concerts create an atmosphere that is nearly impossible to replicate.

The last two concerts I went to were six months apart, but were oddly similar experiences. Both were small venues with crowds smaller than a lecture hall with lots of dancing.  I went with people who I loved dearly, and the edibles didn’t work either time-- but these were two of my last fantastic nights before the pandemic hit.

I have always loved going to concerts; they are an out of body experience that rocks your whole soul and existence. I’m not an avid concert-goer. Rather, I have always liked the build up, the anticipation to the big day. And when all of that energy goes away due to COVID rescheduling, the world seems to lose something - a quality to life, an experience that is like no other, the memories of an amazing night with friends or family rain or shine. With my big summer concert cancelled, I suddenly found myself lost in music; listening wasn’t the same, every song seemed to be different, and that threw me off.

I’m someone who listens to music constantly, and to have that suddenly not be the same in a global crisis was disheartening to say the least. I didn’t want to just sit in silence, but I also kept thinking about those last concerts and all the missed performances my friends and I talked about going to but decided last minute to hang in the dorms instead. At least three concerts had passed where we had the ticket sale up on our phones only to close the page and do something else-- if only we had known.

Sitting in my room between online classes, I found myself listening to the same music on repeat with no motivation to discover something new or at least try to enjoy the music I was listening to. It didn’t sound the same, and I wasn’t sure why except for the fact that I suddenly desired to be in a hot, sweaty room filled with people all screaming the same lyrics.

So instead, I threw myself into a different semi-expensive music industry endeavour: records.

After receiving a record player for Christmas, my collection was severely lacking come March and the pandemic. With my first quarantine order being backordered for three weeks, I couldn’t help myself from looking into other records, and soon I fell into a trap of colored vinyls and special Target editions of albums. Every time a new record finally arrived, I would lock myself in my room and listen through the whole album.

It wasn’t an open space with lots of people, but my air-conditioned bedroom with its various string lights and bad acoustics quickly became a venue of my own.

When the needle fell upon the first song, it was a break from reality similar to that of seeing a performer. It wasn’t as intense, but for as long as Side A spun, the world seemed to be not falling apart. It was easy to forget that I was kicked out of my dorm and life was halted with my eyes closed and a record on because once again, it was all about the music.

Say what you will, but listening to records is very different from streaming music. I felt like I was connecting with the music once again, and I was involved. Getting up to switch records marked the passage of time, and with each record, I felt quarantine pass by. While streaming is very convenient, and I still often default to it, records created an experience like concerts. You have to listen, and be aware when playing records, and I felt like I could really hear music again. It helped that my record player doesn’t have the best speakers and it often is distorted in a way that makes it sound like there is a crowd screaming. 

It didn’t take long for my collection to grow and for me to reconnect with the experience of music. I still play a record every night to remind me of the magic music has, and to dance around and pretend like I’m at a concert.