🧵 Thursday Thread: Fandom, Concerts, Coming of Age
Love & Some Verses: Let's tell concert stories: firsts, bests, worsts, and everything in between
As I said yesterday, I’ve become a true fan—or maybe even a groupie, haha—of Iron and Wine. This trip trip to Bayfield to hear him perform under the Chautauqua Big Top Tent, my sixth time seeing him perform live, showed me this.
I’m not entirely sure what “this” means, this deeper level of appreciation for his music, this kind of connection and attachment, but it’s more than just loving the songs, more than just attending the concerts. It’s closer to the feeling of being part of something, inside of a creative process as it’s happening in real time. A genuinely sacred experience.
And in paging through this beautiful, beautiful book that I bought at the merch table (of course I bought a book at a concert merch table) makes clear something I already felt in Sam Beam’s music and performances: his experience of creating, of making music, making art, is very similar to mine, very much reflective of the way I think about creativity, what it really means to make something new and to expand in the process of doing so. It’s an absolutely gorgeous book and the images of his notebook pages, the documentation of creativity and revision, is so beautiful and so instructive that I’m planning a whole post to share more about it.
Meanwhile, though, our conversation yesterday about music and concerts got me thinking—as a late-bloomer to the music and concert scene, I’d love to hear your stories of watershed moments with concerts!
You can tell whatever story or share whatever thoughts you have—anything goes as long as we’re good to each other. I’d even just love to hear what you’re listening to right now! But if you want to start with any of these questions below, they’re meant to inspire conversation—and may even lead you to something you’d like to write more about later:
Coming-of-Age + Personal Myth
What concert changed the way you understood yourself—and how?
Was there a show that marked the end of your childhood or the beginning of something wild and unnameable?
Did you ever go to a concert you weren’t supposed to attend? What did it awaken in you?
Epiphanies + Altered Perception
What’s the strangest or most beautiful thing you've ever realized in the middle of a crowd at a concert?
Have you ever cried at a concert—and if so, what broke you open?
Was there a moment in a live show where time felt altered or unreal? What was happening in that moment?
Fandom + Identity
Who was the first artist you saw live that you loved in a way that felt like religion?
Did you ever follow a band or artist obsessively? What did your fandom give you—and what did it cost?
Did a concert ever make you feel seen in a way that nothing else had before?
Human Connection + Communal Energy
Have you ever had a transcendent moment of connection with a stranger at a concert? What passed between you?
What’s the closest you’ve come to experiencing collective ecstasy or shared grief in a crowd of people listening to music?
Has a concert ever made you believe in something bigger than yourself—community, love, art, even god?
Thanks in advance for sharing your stories!! I can’t wait. And if you don’t have concert stories to share, remember, it would also be fun just to hear what you’re listening to right now—what’s keeping you afloat in these hard times?
It is such an honor to live creatively with all of you, and do language together.
Love,
Jeannine
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