Until It’s Gone

Visual by Kayla Spaar

Music is the key to creativity and passion. Never has a day gone by where I haven’t surrounded myself with music. It is my fuel, the thing that gets me through the mundane and unnecessary. Music is woven into every piece of my fabric, from summer to spring.

And while streaming services and the radio are more than enough to satisfy my ears, there is something unmistakable special about live music. There’s a thrill in the air at concerts: hundreds of thousands of fans sit, hushed or cheering, waiting for their idol to walk across the stage and bless their ears with sounds. Then there’s the earth-shattering bass or percussion line you can feel in your soul, and the melodies that drift through the underground to arrive at your spine. Every concert is a stunning and unique experience, from a famous rock band to mighty classical, and I’m lucky enough to have worked in the live music industry for the past few years.

Until I wasn’t. As if COVID-19 hasn’t taken away enough, the pandemic has completely changed the way we receive live music. Virtual concerts and streamed benefit galas have shifted into the new normal, leaving large venues and bustling crowds in the days of Before. The impact of the virus is causing me to wonder: are we ever going to be able to go back to the way it was? Am I ever going to show up to work again, 13,000 people surging around me in rhythmic captivation? Is the live entertainment industry completely shattered? What’s going to happen to the basslines and phone flashlights, swinging in the air?

Live music and entertainment has always felt like a staple in my life because it was literally my job. Never in a million years did I expect for it to be taken away as suddenly and absolutely as it was. I never got to say goodbye to the long nights and rowdy crowds. I never let myself appreciate the wafting smell of popcorn and expensive wine on a warm, hazy summer night. I never thought I would have to say goodbye to something as permanent in my life as my job and its endless facets of humanity.

So now, with nowhere else to go and nothing else to listen to, my mind exists in two directions: the first, I’ve never felt luckier to have the line of work that I did; the second, I live in my memories of the music now.

1. I know that live music is not a commodity that everyone has experienced. I wish everyone could have the opportunity to attend a sold out show for their favorite artist or host a small picnic prior to their favorite symphony, but I know that’s a dream rooted in idealism. Because of that, I couldn’t be happier or more grateful for my arsenal of concerts and shows I’ve both seen and worked. I couldn’t imagine my life without live music in it, and that was true long before I scored my job. There has always been something so intriguing to me about thousands of people showing up to an auditorium for a night, just to listen to a couple of artists play their songs. I think it’s a uniquely human idea, and I’ve always been so in love with it, maybe now more than ever. I’m lucky to have worked a job where I got to fall in love with music again every night.

2. My love for live music, then, manifests itself through my memories. Sometimes, I’ll be listening to a song on Spotify or the radio and it’ll bring me back to that moment I saw it performed. That one high note I love in the song will remind me of exactly where I was standing or what I was doing: climbing endless stairs to assist a patron or looking out across the venue to see how blissful everyone looked. I relish in how my breath was stolen by the shimmering of phone lights during acoustic songs. Whenever the venue lit up with flashlights, I would let my eyes lose focus, just for a second, and pretend I was floating in a sea of stars, effervescent and endless. I miss it.

My memories are only bittersweet now. In so many ways, I love remembering what was, and how simple it all seems looking back. In so many other ways, I almost can’t bear to reminisce because I know the chance of a return to all that is blatantly impossible. I’m caught at a crossroads, then, of ignorance and denial. I know it’s so unlikely for my dreams of regression to come true, and yet, I keep dreaming them. It feels so hopeless, but I’m nothing if not hopeful and a touch naive.

So, with that, instead of dwelling on what’s lost, I try to imagine what could be. I fixate on how concerts could still take place, more intimate and widely broadcasted. I think about how, even though the live facet of the entertainment industry has been lost, the music is still with us. And in the notes and harmonies, it carries reminders of how splendid live music was and still could be. I don’t want to believe that we’ll all be stuck inside forever, living monotonous, deficient lives. No.

I want to believe, with all the teenaged optimism I can muster, that we’ll find a return to concerts and shows, to our cultural humanity. I think the lull in live events is temporary, inferior to the pull of guitars and violins and singing along at the top of our lungs. Live music is as much a part of me as it is for so many other creators and enthusiasts. So I’ll keep hoping. I’ll keep hoping and reminiscing and maybe, in the midst of all that dreaming, the world can safely find a semblance of old musical normalcy. Oh, how a girl can dream.