I’ve had a lot of thoughts since the tragic incident that happened Monday evening in Manchester, England.
If you didn’t know, a bomb went off outside of an Ariana Grande just as the show finished, killing 22 people and injuring dozens more.
This was a show for young people. Obviously Ariana’s fanbase is teens and tweens (and young adults) and that alone makes this horrible. For some, it was their first concert. It was their first time seeing their idol in person.
And I might be a thousand miles away in Georgia, but the incident shook me.
For me, going to a concert is like seeing family that you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s like going home. Hell, concerts to me feel more like home than my hometown. I see people I know, people I love and people who are my family.
For some, concerts are a sacred place… kind of like a church. And no matter the fanbase or artist, Monday evening, our sacred place was terrorized. As music fans, we are one. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of Justin Bieber or the Backstreet Boys, we are a community that loves something in its rarest form – a musician singing, playing the guitar, performing his or her heart out.
We go to concerts to escape real life. Maybe it’s taking a break from work or a night out on the town and away from the kids. Maybe it’s to get away from all the drama that’s happening in your life for two and a half hours (give or take).
Concerts are supposed to be a place of joy and happiness. You rock out to your favorite song when the artists performs it. You let go of all your worries.
That feeling was taken away from fans in Manchester, which sucks. And for some, that worry might be in the back of their minds when they go to another show. The world is a crazy people and there are some psychotic people in it.
But as music fans, we can’t let them take that happiness of a concert away from us.
Fear can not keep us from what makes us happy and that’s music.