The sounds vaguely drift up the block. There’s a milling of people around, a few vans and trailers strung out, parked in front. The music gets louder as you get closer and there are a few kids here and there, huddled in groups against the early winter cold, smoking. One of them looks up at you, smiles and waves. You nod back. It’s an old neighborhood church, with the train two blocks away and an empty elementary school across the street. The entry to the freeway and the bridge over the river is a few blocks in one direction. It’s quiet, almost deserted on a weekend night like this.
At the door there’s someone behind a makeshift table, dolling out singles for change, slapping cheap neon bracelets on wrists. NO BOOZE NO SMOKES NO FIGHTING is thickly scrawled in black marker on a big sign posted on the wall above the table. The music’s stopped for a while, and a flurry of kids, blue-haired, pierced, scruffy, tattooed, stream out past you to escape the wave of heat from inside. Down the stairs.
There are still a few kids down there, leaning against the walls, helping the band break down their gear. A few chat in groups, some buy home-printed shirts and demos from a smiling kid with a backpack and a box against the far wall. He’s with the band, thanks them, slips them a few free stickers and a flyer. The next band starts to set up, a simple three-piece. Somehow, a hidden signal causes everyone from outside to come back in. You struggle against the flow to grab some fresh air and say hi to someone. You see the last few smokers and stragglers out front. In the bathroom, you can hear laughter and yelling. Someone missed the toilet.
Cars come and go outside, some slowing down as they maybe hear a few strands of the setup or see the mass of black and leather-clad kids, but all that matters now is back getting downstairs. This is the band you came for, so you head towards the front. Well, it’s the front of the crowd, since there really isn’t a stage. Just a cleared area where the PA is set up. There’s a pause, a few strummed chords and a drumline rolling, playing, not really any song, just a warm up. “Check, one two, one two. Hey, we’re…” Their name is lost as you and about 30 other people scream the first line of the song they begin.
Hearts beat faster. Sweat pours down faces and on the singer’s face; it’s like a waterfall. There’s no lights, no smoke, no stage show. Just two guys and a girl, singing and playing their hearts out. The vocals are almost impossible to hear since you and a few others eventually start to out-sing the mic. You yell at the singer. He’s a coworker, and he stops and says hi while bullshitting with a pretty girl up front between songs. They continue on, and you scream louder and louder before, at the very end, storming near him and grabbing him. The crowd goes nuts as the two of you sing together into the mic. It’s a cover song, some old 80’s punk song from a jukebox in a bar on the other side of the city.
As oddly as it started, it ends with a bang. “Thanks a lot, go buy our shit guys! We’ll be at…”, some bar you know in the coming weeks. You’ll be there, drinking and singing along from the front. Not the same as this though. You step up to help out a bit with clearing stuff so the next band can set up and go on. Rinse and repeat this for the next two or three bands, though you know that none of them can match the one you came to see.
You’re outside later, as the kids head out. It’s almost over, but something’s changed in the air. People are tired, sweaty, even though the air is cold. There are new pairs of held hands and fists clutching new t-shirts, new songs and words filling heads. For at least a few people there, maybe that girl walking alone towards the bus stop in a daze, or the two young kids, looking barely 14 with green and blue hair, it’s their first real all-ages punk show. You remember the feeling, the sense of leaving knowing that you just took part in something magical and incredible that you can’t really describe, but you know it when you’re singing it and you can’t wait to do it again.
A few hours have gone by, you and your friends are in a diner a few blocks away. It’s past midnight and the whole thing took about an hour to break down. You pitched in. The doors are locked, the bands paid whatever they could get, the floors swept and bathrooms cleaned. The lights are out. Church basements and VFW halls and old houses and community centers from all over the country go back to doing whatever they’re usually doing hosting VFW events and bar mitzvahs and whatever else.
Do it yourself.
Tags: DIY, story by Matthew
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