Which is ridiculous; I am a writer. Or at least I pretend to be one most of the time.
But words you must have. So I will pull some out from the inside of my brain, and excuse me if it comes out garbled.
The introduction to this story is a week in which I would not have minded if the world did indeed end right then (as someone had predicted it would). I was pretty tired of this place, and everything in it.
I can't even pinpoint it to any one thing, but something triggered something, and I got thrown into the strangest state of existence I have ever been in. I was incredibly negative about life, and that is strange for me because I can always find the good side of things.
It came down to this: The world is pretty broken and no matter how much we try to fix it, well it still remains broken. And often just gets worse.
I was tired. Tired of trying to fix things. I just wanted it to end.
Now, let me speak about metal. Ah, what a genre. Most music is based on the maxim that less is more. But not with metal. With metal, more is more. Everyone is going crazy - the drums, the bass, both guitars, the vocals. It's insane! It's incredible :)
Live metal is even better: the music is loud, loud enough to move you. The band can't stay still, and they don't just tap their feet, they tend to jump around the stage like crazy people. The crowd won't stay still either, neither do they settle for a mere jump here and there. No, it's so intense, they have to slam into each other or fling their arms and legs in every direction because it is impossible to contain all that energy and emotion.
This is what I love.
And you know the best part about this weekend? It totally restored my will to live. And it wasn't just the loud music and the fast beats and the intense screaming. It wasn't just the fact that I could dance again with everything that I am. It wasn't just being able to lose myself in the moment, to scream and jump and go crazy.
It's more than that.
Because there's this other thing about a lot of metal bands that I love. Not only do they understand that the music is important, they also know that there's something else. That music moves people, and not just to dance. They have a message to bring and it's usually pushing positive.
Ah, I must tell you something about this band, Truth and its Burden. You see, first of all, the whole gig started really late because they'd had to travel to PE all the way from Durban (after travelling to Durban from Joburg the day before), and the equipment was late, so each band had to cut their set short. Also, Truth and its Burden landed up only paying three songs (or was it two? I think it was three) because their vocalist was just too tired to play any more (he happens to be the guy who was organising the entire thing, so its understandable)(bleak though). Yet they gave everything they had into those three songs. Ashley (vocalist) was saying he was tired, and yet he was still jumping around stage like a crazy person.
Thing is, even though they didn't play many songs, the fact that they were on this tour made my get a hold of their music and listen to it beforehand. And I discovered they're really pretty awesome, so I'm glad of that :)
Now, what I wanted to tell you is what they said about one of their songs. They wrote it, he said, during a time when things really weren't going well for them. Days were pretty bleak. But this was a song of hope. Hope even in the darkest times.
I heard them speak of this, and it was exactly what I needed to hear - I needed that hope. I couldn't even hear any of the lyrics, but that didn't matter. There was a message in the music and I was getting it.
That was the entire gig for me - hope. I was myself again after that weekend. The world is still pretty messed up, and I'm still pretty bleak about it, but I'm ready to get back into the battlefield and fight for change. There is still a shred of hope in the world, there is still a chance to make a difference, and I'm going to hold onto it with all that I have.
Edit: Maybe I mean hardcore, not metal? Darn I'm not good at this genre thing at all :P Besides everyone seems to define themselves differently. Well, I'm talking about the music that I am talking about. Yeah. :)
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