Cross-posted from Facebook, sorry for overlap
I'm not sure that I can adequately describe what just happened to me.
I was walking home from my office. It had been a good day, but a long one -- I was short on bed-hours, and the plan was to go home, read something not school-related, and get some sleep. I had read that there was going to be a bonfire in the quad, with fire-dancing and maybe drums, and ordinarily I would go but I was just tired.
But Ellen and I walked through anyway, just to see what was up. And there was a bonfire, and there were fire-dancers, and there was a drum circle. And people toasting marshmallows, and drinking cheap beer, and generally having a relaxed night in the cool, drizzly weather. So we stopped for a while, and we watched some fire-dancing.
And eventually I put down my bag, and I went up to where the drums were, and I sat down, and I grabbed a drum. And like I said, I'm not sure that I can adequately describe this.
There were maybe five or six of us at a time, drumming. We were watching the dancers, and the dancers were listening to us, and all of us were sort of making it up as we went along. Every once in a while a drummer would get tired and he would look questioningly at someone standing nearby eying the drums --- the spectator would nod, excitedly or apprehensively, and sit down and start to feel out a new rhythm to add to what he heard.
The rhythms were constantly changing. Somebody would come up with something interesting, and somebody else would play off it, and somebody else would play off that and everything shifted and none of us was leading but all of us were following, and the intensity ebbed and flowed and it matched everyone's mood and the weather and the surroundings and musically, technically, rhythmically, it was one of the greatest things I've ever been part of.
I was already having a great time when I think we all looked around and noticed at the same time that the fire-dancers had more or less finished their act -- instead, the crowd had started dancing. By the light of the fire, with no discussion or hesitation, almost unanimously, these people -- these Reedies, a group as awkwardly inhibited and as euphorically free as anyone I know -- were dancing in the rain.
The beat picked up gradually, imperceptibly. Maybe in tempo, maybe in complexity or structure, but less definably in tone, in energy. We were moving, too, as we were playing, some of us communicating with each other as musicians do, but all of us getting carried along by our own energy and by the crowd.
The beat picked up, and drummers kept shifting in and out and going to dance and coming back to drum, but I couldn't stop drumming even when my hands ached. Reedies started stripping off their clothes, dancing shirtless or naked by the fire in a way that was somehow neither primal nor promiscuous, but euphoric, undiluted.
I have no sense of how long we were there, but the time came to finish it. Nobody made the decision, nobody signaled or counted, but we all looked around at each other and we knew. And smoothly, gracefully, the beat ended.
I've performed on stage a handful of times. I've heard crowds applaud out of politeness, out of appreciation, even when genuinely impressed. I've been to rock shows and heard the shouts of the most dedicated fans, caught up in adoration for a band. But I have never heard a crowd scream like this. It wasn't about appreciation, although it certainly was that. It wasn't about wanting more, although it certainly was that.
It was that everyone was simultaneously so completely overwhelmed by what was going on all around them in that moment that what could they do but scream at the top of their lungs? And what could we do but scream back? And then someone struck a drum four times and instantly we were back in the middle of it.
If you weren't there, this might sound absurd. It might sound overwritten, it might sound near-cultish, and it might sound like I go to a school full of hippies. This isn't about any of those things, although it might be overwritten.
But if you were there, thank you. I don't know how else to say it.
I was walking home from my office. It had been a good day, but a long one -- I was short on bed-hours, and the plan was to go home, read something not school-related, and get some sleep. I had read that there was going to be a bonfire in the quad, with fire-dancing and maybe drums, and ordinarily I would go but I was just tired.
But Ellen and I walked through anyway, just to see what was up. And there was a bonfire, and there were fire-dancers, and there was a drum circle. And people toasting marshmallows, and drinking cheap beer, and generally having a relaxed night in the cool, drizzly weather. So we stopped for a while, and we watched some fire-dancing.
And eventually I put down my bag, and I went up to where the drums were, and I sat down, and I grabbed a drum. And like I said, I'm not sure that I can adequately describe this.
There were maybe five or six of us at a time, drumming. We were watching the dancers, and the dancers were listening to us, and all of us were sort of making it up as we went along. Every once in a while a drummer would get tired and he would look questioningly at someone standing nearby eying the drums --- the spectator would nod, excitedly or apprehensively, and sit down and start to feel out a new rhythm to add to what he heard.
The rhythms were constantly changing. Somebody would come up with something interesting, and somebody else would play off it, and somebody else would play off that and everything shifted and none of us was leading but all of us were following, and the intensity ebbed and flowed and it matched everyone's mood and the weather and the surroundings and musically, technically, rhythmically, it was one of the greatest things I've ever been part of.
I was already having a great time when I think we all looked around and noticed at the same time that the fire-dancers had more or less finished their act -- instead, the crowd had started dancing. By the light of the fire, with no discussion or hesitation, almost unanimously, these people -- these Reedies, a group as awkwardly inhibited and as euphorically free as anyone I know -- were dancing in the rain.
The beat picked up gradually, imperceptibly. Maybe in tempo, maybe in complexity or structure, but less definably in tone, in energy. We were moving, too, as we were playing, some of us communicating with each other as musicians do, but all of us getting carried along by our own energy and by the crowd.
The beat picked up, and drummers kept shifting in and out and going to dance and coming back to drum, but I couldn't stop drumming even when my hands ached. Reedies started stripping off their clothes, dancing shirtless or naked by the fire in a way that was somehow neither primal nor promiscuous, but euphoric, undiluted.
I have no sense of how long we were there, but the time came to finish it. Nobody made the decision, nobody signaled or counted, but we all looked around at each other and we knew. And smoothly, gracefully, the beat ended.
I've performed on stage a handful of times. I've heard crowds applaud out of politeness, out of appreciation, even when genuinely impressed. I've been to rock shows and heard the shouts of the most dedicated fans, caught up in adoration for a band. But I have never heard a crowd scream like this. It wasn't about appreciation, although it certainly was that. It wasn't about wanting more, although it certainly was that.
It was that everyone was simultaneously so completely overwhelmed by what was going on all around them in that moment that what could they do but scream at the top of their lungs? And what could we do but scream back? And then someone struck a drum four times and instantly we were back in the middle of it.
If you weren't there, this might sound absurd. It might sound overwritten, it might sound near-cultish, and it might sound like I go to a school full of hippies. This isn't about any of those things, although it might be overwritten.
But if you were there, thank you. I don't know how else to say it.