Baptized in the Waters of the Mosh Pit

I once read somewhere that music is what all the other arts strive to be. After seeing this show, I could feel that quote pounding in my ear drums. Honest, intense, and with banshee screams and monster growls, the entire experience was a reminder of my youth and the impact music and punk shows had on it. 

Memories of my childhood are filled with baseball diamonds and hardcore shows. Most of my  early exposure to live performance was music; the music that my friends and I called our own. Chiodos, Circa Survive, Brand New and Thrice, these were the bands that spoke to me in high school. A good mosh pit at a Maylene and the Sons of Disaster show and singing along with the lyrics to a Taking Back Sunday flash like lights in my recall. These angst ridden songs and chantable, screamable lyrics fuel the entire night at Underground Arts (thanks Jeff Galagher). 

From high notes to low growls, letlive. and the architects did not disappoint. The two openers, glass cloud and i the mighty, were perfect set-ups for their headliners. i the mighty opened strong, glass cloud started the pit, architects raised the stakes, and letlive. drove us home (with sore backs and wounded necks). I sat back and admired the veracity and youth of the crowd for the first three acts, admiring the 16 year olds starting the cause early with crowd sufering and stage diving, but when letlive. dawned the stage it was time to leave the gear behind and join the crowd.

Led by vocalist  Jason Aalon Alexander Butler and his beard, letlive. owned the stage for an hour. Their songs were personal and delivered with depth of talent and ability. As an actor, I could only sit and admire the control of Butler and his mastery of his instrument. He can scream, belt, and sing with the best of them and then turn to the crowd and face us with the kind of honesty every Iago desires to inspire. 

We fall in love with these bands as kids because they possess the sort of honesty we don't find in our every day lives. The poetry of their struggle speaks to us, the depth of instrumental matches our emotions, and the feeling of family mirrors our aspiration. Everybody there, young and old, beard or babe, was there in communion, to be a part of something, a moment. These bands offered us a chance to be a person, with them, at this show. 

I will always love the feel of a small hardcore show. Whether its packed into Underground Arts or bouncing at the Masquerade, sweating and moshing with people for the sake of being alive speaks to me to this day. I forgot how much fun it is to be a part of the crowd, to lose yourself in the wave, to lift someone over your shoulders and onto the crowd, to lift a fallen mosher off the ground and send him back into battle. 

Every actor should go to a hardcore show just to remind himself what passion looks like, from both the audience and the performers. 

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