Oh it flowed copious amounts of I-don’t-know-what, it started suddenly and I didn’t care, I spewed great big globules of blood and snot on everyone around me but I didn’t care and neither did they. My neck hurt but I went on, I just had to, I had to break through the barrier, the pain would go, the hormones would kick in sooner or later and it would be worth it.
Ten minutes later, a body comes slamming into me, I turn around and push back, then seeing a back turned at me, I hurl my body at the back, in mid-air, another body intersects me and we both fall in a heap on the concrete ground. Pick myself up just in time to take the wall charging at me standing, I duck, dig a heel into the ground and bend my knees, slam, the impact takes me off my feet again. I land on someone, who flings me back into the mass of bodies where I land on another. Grabbing him by the elbow, I direct him at a wall rushing past and we launch ourselves at it. Hitting it at right angles, we throw them off-balance, break their momentum.
Ten minutes later I’m on somebody’s shoulders, my fists in the air, I smile and lean back all the way, a dozen pairs of hands help me off and I float off into the crowd, limbs extended, a part idiotic, part ecstatic grin on my face, till someone brings me down, holding me tight to his chest till I struggle free like a kitten being held against its will and immerse myself into the throng.
Ten minutes later and it’s a sound-check and I take the opportunity to head to the grass where couples sit in dignified silence, the music just a background score to the more important business at hand. I lie down, I’m far enough out of the city to be able to see a few stars. Lying on my back, I blow smoke at the orange moon, blotting out the sky with my soot laden breath.
Ten minutes later and I’m back in the fray, in the midst of a few hundred bodies bouncing off our feet, jumping in time to the double pedalled bass, exhausted, delirious, sharing our breath, space and for a moment our souls. Plugged into a common line, we feel the same emotions, we are driven by the same force, we boo together, we head-bang together, we sweat, drool and collapse together.
Four hours of this and I’m over, I detach myself from the communal needle and my brain kicks into independent-thought-mode once more. I’m exhausted beyond belief, my nostrils are encrusted with who knows what, my clothes are soaked with the sweat of the hundred or so bodies that I’ve collided with, my mascara’s run and I look like a racoon, my jeans have foot-prints on them, my back is bruised and my neck will move about ten degrees in either direction. On the whole an evening well spent.
Ten minutes later, a body comes slamming into me, I turn around and push back, then seeing a back turned at me, I hurl my body at the back, in mid-air, another body intersects me and we both fall in a heap on the concrete ground. Pick myself up just in time to take the wall charging at me standing, I duck, dig a heel into the ground and bend my knees, slam, the impact takes me off my feet again. I land on someone, who flings me back into the mass of bodies where I land on another. Grabbing him by the elbow, I direct him at a wall rushing past and we launch ourselves at it. Hitting it at right angles, we throw them off-balance, break their momentum.
Ten minutes later I’m on somebody’s shoulders, my fists in the air, I smile and lean back all the way, a dozen pairs of hands help me off and I float off into the crowd, limbs extended, a part idiotic, part ecstatic grin on my face, till someone brings me down, holding me tight to his chest till I struggle free like a kitten being held against its will and immerse myself into the throng.
Ten minutes later and it’s a sound-check and I take the opportunity to head to the grass where couples sit in dignified silence, the music just a background score to the more important business at hand. I lie down, I’m far enough out of the city to be able to see a few stars. Lying on my back, I blow smoke at the orange moon, blotting out the sky with my soot laden breath.
Ten minutes later and I’m back in the fray, in the midst of a few hundred bodies bouncing off our feet, jumping in time to the double pedalled bass, exhausted, delirious, sharing our breath, space and for a moment our souls. Plugged into a common line, we feel the same emotions, we are driven by the same force, we boo together, we head-bang together, we sweat, drool and collapse together.
Four hours of this and I’m over, I detach myself from the communal needle and my brain kicks into independent-thought-mode once more. I’m exhausted beyond belief, my nostrils are encrusted with who knows what, my clothes are soaked with the sweat of the hundred or so bodies that I’ve collided with, my mascara’s run and I look like a racoon, my jeans have foot-prints on them, my back is bruised and my neck will move about ten degrees in either direction. On the whole an evening well spent.
