I got stuck in traffic last night.

After band practice. And after spending time in the usual Bensonhurst apartment building. I got stuck in traffic.

So, when I did, and after the research conducted concluded that said traffic would not be the most brief- I got off the expressway and went to a show.

I knew the opener. Sort of. It’s a mutual-scene-band-thing. All the same cats associated and such. I thought I knew the bass player. Might be former bass now. Not trying to get into band politics. But he certainly wasn’t the cat on the thunder-broom last night. The drummer was different, but that was expected. I knew the former of bass and drums, it seems. I played with the bass player, once. Some online holiday jam stream. ‘go bridgeside.’

Either way, they opened quite well. The room was scattered upon their start. The stage was crowded towards the end. All sorts of folks. The usual suspects. The douche. The girls just there to dance. The super high folks. The cougars. Dude with uncomfortably age-gapped girlfriend. The photographer whose conversation I’d wonder what would be like.

Never found out.

But rock, they did. Better than the headliner, I’d say. I split not long after the top billed started. Sober and tired don’t make for the formula to indulge in the essence of the generic jam band. An idea once thought incomprehensible.  

Might be I just shut my ears. Might be I didn’t give them long enough.

Or, it might be that I’m right. Let the historians decide. If we’ve got any of those left.

Second time in recent memory I’ve gone to a show unaccompanied. I must say, I don’t hate it. I’ve also been working to not use live music as a way to get vastly more ossified than usual. The result is financial responsible, as well as physically.

But I look around a lot. At these shows, alone.

And in an effort to not stare down upon my cellular shackle, I tend to let my eyes wander. Watch the people and how they behave. Or how this person looks like some other form of another soul I know or knew. Or the folks who work- slinging drinks, stacking speakers, pushing faders and turning knobs.

And there are moments where I do little more than stare upon the ceiling. Whatever that ceiling might be.

A sight, perhaps, for those that might look upon me.

‘What substance must he be on?’ they might think. Must be strong. He cannot look away from the disco ball. Even when it has no light upon it.

Little do they know, I’m of legal sobriety to operate a motor vehicle.