The Sound of Music

14 June 2001
Neil has found religion.

The guy in front's hair is swinging like the deformed tail of an excitable puppy; as we undulate, control over any of our movements beyond the concerted effort to remain upright surrendered to the heaving human mass that hems us in, it whips up into my face and for an instant I have a mouthful of the sweat that has soaked its way down. A plastic pint glass of piss is hurled over the crowd by a guy unwilling to fight his way to the toilets, spattering us liberally. I am taken by surprise by a booted foot as it slams into the back of my head; it is attached to a splayed teenager whom we reach up and help on his way over us, across the crowd's fleshy roof. I have never been this happy.

I have worshipped at other churches: swayed, apostate, in the thrall of electro-ambience as fervent loners and geeky clusters lurk in shadowy corners, their fixed gazes diverted only for a second to check the wire that tickles their ribs and the microphone dot on their lapel; no-one here is trying to bootleg, not because the equipment would get crushed or the band are too distant but we all know that it is about the moment, the sound captures nothing: replayed it would be hollow.

I have admired the isolated poet with his guitar, the intricacy of his words, the simplicity of his vision, but a prophet's meaning is always disputed: only a Messiah unites us all. I have pumped my body to pounding beats, flared fleetingly with a false fellowship in the company of Dionysian clubbers who can manufacture snatches of the spirit but without any message are sparks in a vacuum.

I have doubted my own faith: my mind will not surrender easily and detaches itself, distracts itself, in the midst of everything questions whether I'm really enjoying this, whether I'm not simply believing what I want to be true. I have grown cynical about evangelists, peddling rebellion to line their own pockets, whipping up congregations with buzz-word platitudes. But I keep on coming back because as the guitars build up their howling agitato I know that the message is true.

This is the pipe we pass round, the bowl we all drink from: we exchange sweat and not blood but for a moment we are brothers. A man who would hate me if he knew me rights me as I stumble, a girl who will not meet my gaze after we've dispersed into the night flashes me a smile. The look that earnt me stares in the village by the sea is a uniform for hundreds. The singer's voice is drowned by our own as we chant the lyrics that no-one understood like me and in this mass empathy we find annihilation, we find our absolution. This is our chance to escape.