Riverstage

6:50 pm. Riverstage. Strobe lights slice across a sea of bodies—shredding a film reel of motion into individual snapshots of this theatre of mass enlightenment. Guitars growl like lions, eating up all worldly fears. Synths shriek, emboldening bodies to vibrate to the same fundamental harmonic. The kick-bass surges in undertow, beating out all negative emotions. Each note shatters into fractal overtones. The scene pulses with kaleidoscopic synaesthesia. Joy came in incandescent waves, taking my internal narrator with it. Time became a rubber band, slowing and speeding up like a warped record. The door of perception was opened. We were one.

As I ran around in a circle pit as The Devil Wears Prada played their song 'Dez Moines', I experienced the soul-enriching power of music. In a world where genuine connection is becoming harder to find, music remains one of the few lifelines for disillusioned people, especially youth. Music connects people in a way that is hard to quantify using words. It connects us through our most primal emotional networks. In that crowd, I saw how people from all walks of life were able to connect and have moments of emotional release thanks to music. As connection is a big component of love, you could say that music is love.

For much of my life, I didn't have any friends. But the local underground music scene changed that. I was able to make quite a lot of connections, found a voice, and got recognised for my creative endeavours. The only problem? On an emotional level, I didn't feel like I deserved any of that. Years of conditioning had made me scared of the very things that I always wanted. I kept wanting more, and failed to realise what I already had. I pushed people away and kept complaining without realising the problem didn't exist in the first place. The fact is that to be loved, you have to love yourself.

In that crowd, despite having had experiences with bad people not long before, I realised that those people were much like me. They had insecurities, and acted the way they did as a reflection of the pain they were in and their attempt to use others as an outlet for that pain. In that crowd, I saw people picking others up when they fell down, I saw people moving themselves around to protect others from being pushed around too much by the moshpit. I sang the lyrics to songs face to face with strangers and it provided a valuable emotional release as I thought about people who wronged me while singing them.

It made me appreciate the local scene for what it is. Sure, there's bad people, but at the same time, it's the community that's there for people who don't have anywhere else to go. It made me realise how fucking easy it is to make friends if you just be a bit stupidly outgoing, you don't care about bad people think because they're just reflecting their own pain, and just show up to as many gigs as possible.

My message is to lose yourself in the moment. Let your ego dissolve and become one with the moment. Recognise the scene for what it is and support your local bands and creatives. They need it and they're the ones who are the backbone of the scene. Believe that life can change and find your guiding light—it's usually something that builds a type of connection with yourself or others, makes you lose yourself in the moment, and makes you happy.

In this issue, we have special coverage on the band Piss Off—the members of which were important mentors for me. I'd like to thank everyone who has ever supported me and who feels some form of connection with what I do. I'd like to especially thank my friend Immy though, for being the person who has related to me the most, provided the best advice as of late, and being one of the few people who has genuinely understood what I've been through. Also, a big thank you to the people were at the Bullet For My Valentine concert for showing what a music-centred community is all about. I feel reborn after that experience.

Live concerts are a way for one to realise the overwhelming power music has to facilitate connection and provide meaning for disillusioned individuals. In a world where genuine connection is being paid by stimulation and paid 'companionship', music remains a guiding light for many.

For the past few months, I've been at war with myself. It was a type of Cold War, so subtle that I didn't acknowledge it, yet so total so as to have led to the complete destruction of many valuable relationships I had. I was in pain from mounting feelings of isolation, alienation, and stress. When in pain, one wants to find whatever or whoever is causing such pain, hold it accountable, and fix the pain. I did not know of a solution, so in my subconscious mind, I identified people as the cause of my pain. I used them as an outlet, whether through venting, criticism, or inconsiderate actions, and in doing so, perpetuated the very pain I was in.

To stop doing something, one needs to make an emotional conclusion, not necessarily an emotional one, and realise they have a choice to make that is subject to their own free will. I had to experience the negative emotions spawned by my decisions to change them. In the crowd, as I was watching The Devil Wears Prada perform their melodic metalcore song 'Dez Moines' while dancing in a circle pit, I realised how we are all One. We are all just part of the same cosmic substance, which happens to be able to perceive itself from many beings of perception. I realised how connected we are, and how people all have their own flaws, but when you have shared experiences, shared values, you share a special type of emotional connection called 'love'. The key to that connection is to love yourself. This is done through realising that perception is subjective, and choosing to perceive things in a way that is conductive to love.

That type of connection is something that defies much logical explanation. It is something embedded within our psyche. It is a key reason why we are sentient beings and not like cold, dismissive robots.

A kaleidoscope of flickering stage lights divide movements into individual snapshots in time. Bodies shift around in a circle, as the growls of guitars, screeches of synthesisers, and thumps of a bass guitar and kick drum open my door perception. 'I' ceased to exist. Time contracted and expanded, as skips and speed ups in time (insert something). 'I' ceased to exist. I became one.

Blinding stage lights flicker on and off, dividing hundreds of movements into little snapshots of time. Colours comb through my sight, exploding into a kaleidoscope of perception.

through burnt cannabis and tobacco matter as all boundaries between 'me' and what I perceive dissolves into the pungent aroma of the night. The wails of electronic synthesisers, the growls of guitars, and the thump of bass drums squeeze out my self-narrative.