Time seemed to slow in that church. The music filled every crevice in my brain, bouncing off the ceiling into my ears. I tapped my foot and bobbed my head, entranced by the emotion emitted from every movement, word and facial expression.
On March 17, Underoath played a sold-out show at Brooklyn Steel in Williamsburg along with bands Stray from the Path, Bad Omens and Spiritbox. It was a great experience for my first metal show with an energetic crowd, tons of moshing and enough cathartic energy to help me finish this semester.
Everything from his beginnings — Goblin and Wolf — to CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST had a moment in the sun that night. Every iteration of being a Tyler, The Creator fan was on full display.
On March 10, I experienced the four-hour, sold-out, sixth annual Love Rocks NYC! show in the grandeur of New York City’s Beacon Theatre. Yet my perspective was far different from the rest of the audience. I studied the musicians, yes, but from their backs. As I hunched from my post as drum tech, securely hidden behind the kit and the congas, my eyes darted from the musicians I was working for to the faces of nearly 3,000 radiant music fans.
Long Islander Danny Gonzalez, 21, returned from the Astroworld Festival in Houston with flashbacks of the deadly concert, including personally witnessing the lifeless body of at least one fellow concertgoer.
t was a Wednesday afternoon in September. I sat in my anthropology class fidgeting in my chair and incessantly checking the time on my phone. I’d soon be slipping out the lecture hall to catch a train from Long Island to Manhattan. I thought back to the feeling of excitement that washed over me as I ordered the tickets for Black Pumas back in June. My anticipation for this show was unmatched, as it had already once been postponed, due to — you guessed it — COVID-19.
How do you translate the energy and feeling of a live show — the crowd singing along, watching the lines around a concert venue with excitement — into a virtual production with an audience stuck at home? How does new music, intended to shake a room, get converted into a virtual experience? For Brockhampton, achieving that feat means utilizing the tools in their playbook that make for a great live show, and adapting them.
It seems like Steve Lacy floats through his life with luck on his side. How else could such fortuitous circumstances grace him? He joined The Internet at the age of 15, earned producer credits on their grammy-nominated Ego Death, and…
Before he began this performance, he announced to the audience that this would be “the last Childish Gambino tour ever.” This proclamation was a perfect preface to the kaleidoscope of lights, sound, praise-dances and screams that would comprise the religious experience he told us we were now a part of. In his own words, “this is not a concert, this is church.”