This post was originally published on Substack
Dear friend,
I spent Saturday at the Rage Against the Machine concert in Alpine Valley, their first show in over a decade.
(If you’ve never heard of them, I’ve linked to some of their songs throughout this post—just be aware that they are very loud and in-your-face, so maybe turn your volume down before you go exploring 😂)
I’m normally not someone who sings or dances or… really does anything at concerts. Concerts, in the past, have usually given me anxiety.
And yet, this time around, I did it all. I jumped and danced until my leg muscles were burning, and I screamed until my voice gave out. I even full-on sobbed for a few minutes when the band came out for their first song of the night, letting the overwhelming realization that this is really happening and I am really here wash away what little decorum I had left.
I don’t remember what the last concert was that I attended—it was likely sometime before the pandemic—so I know that I’m very much a different version of myself than I was then. And as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve identified some books whose ideas quietly accumulated in my head and prepared me—unknowingly—for one of the most ecstatic experiences of my lifetime.
In no particular order:
Everything I Need I Get from You by Kaitlyn Tiffany
I reviewed this book about the One Direction fandom for work (you can read that here) and the line that stuck with me the most was:
“Every scream has a personal context, but we rarely hear about it.”
I first heard Rage Against The Machine’s music when my freshman honors English teacher introduced us to the song “Killing In The Name”—hearing something so heart-thumping and anti-authoritarian at the tender age of 15 was electrifying.
I’ve had a copy of their first self-titled album in my car’s CD player for three years now. I don’t always listen to it, but in the rare moments where I don’t feel like plugging my phone in or listening to the radio, it’s comforting to have immediate access to it. I’ll usually let the song “Wake Up” play on repeat—a big, loud, angry contrast to the fact that I’m usually listening to it on my way to my corporate workplace.
I didn’t think I would ever get to see RATM live. The last time they released brand-new music was 1999, and their last concert was in 2011. Having this in mind—and considering the fact that the band members are now in their early 50s—made me realize I couldn’t take the experience for granted. I couldn’t just stand around listlessly. I had to be present. 15-year-old Jasmine wouldn’t forgive nearly-30-year-old Jasmine for that kind of transgression. I had to live it up for her.
Unmasking Autism by Devon Price
I read this book after listening to author Devon Price talk about it during an episode of Life Kit from NPR, and this quote stuck with me:
“[For] most autistic people, we get the message from a really young age that we need to tone it down – that it’s weird to be too excited and too enlivened by the things that we care about, which is so sad… It can be hard to drop all your inhibitions, but joy and pleasure and sharing that joy with other people – it just does so much to relax us and form authentic connections and to actually feel like, ‘Oh, life can be something I actually enjoy and look forward to every day.’”
I’m not autistic (that I know of, anyway), but I do know I’ve spent a lot of energy holding back my emotions and pretending I’m less enthusiastic about things than I really am. It’s exhausting, and I’m still trying to unlearn it. When the concert kicked off on Saturday, I think I’d already given myself permission to just go ahead and feel things, and feel them I did. No regrets.
The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
“[Many] of our bland gatherings cannot be saved by one-off interventions and tricks that are disconnected from the context of the gathering. A gathering’s blandness is a symptom of a disease. We must treat the disease. And what is the disease? That the gathering makes no effort to do what the best gatherings do: transport us to a temporary alternative world.”
When we parked in the Alpine Valley field, the people who were already there tailgating were overwhelmingly white men in band t-shirts and baseball caps. I was initially tense, but found myself relaxing when I reflected on the situation:
- We all had at least one thing in common: our love for the band
- Rage Against The Machine is an openly anti-racist band; it would make sense that anyone there to see them would likely agree with those views
- Given those things, this space was likely one of the safest spaces I could be in
Those parameters, even if unspoken, created a bubble where we could all feel a little more at home. At one point, a random guy came up to us and said, “The moment they start playing ‘Bulls On Parade,’ I don’t even know…” he trailed off, wide-eyed, seemingly lost in the thought of how ecstatic he would feel when his favorite song played.
Knowing that just one other person had bought into the temporarily world around us, it was impossible not to dance.
Let me know if you end up reading any of these books, or if you ever find yourself in a moment where you finally let yourself just be as ecstatic as you want to be.
Until next time,
Jasmine