I remember September eighth like it was yesterday. I will never forget the moment my friends and I packed into my mom’s dark blue 2008 Honda Odyssey and made our way to see Dodie Clark live in concert. On the way there, me and my four friends talked about how much we loved the artist we were seeing, and how we couldn’t wait for her voice to touch our ears and our hearts. The whole car was buzzing with an excited energy, the way bees buzz around their hive. When we arrived at the venue, Brooklyn Steel, we had to get on a line that coiled around 2 corners of the block. The line looked like it went on forever, but we couldn’t be happier to take our spots at the end and wait in the chilly dampness of the September drizzle. Brooklyn Steel was a large brick building, with the bottom half painted red and the words “[319 FROST ST]” painted in big white letters across the top of the building, close to the roof. The whole place had quite an industrial feel to it. Perhaps it was the large glass windows that looked like they were from a factory built in the early 1800s, or the sheet metal walls lined with barbed wire around the block. I still wonder why that jagged wire was trying to keep us out, and what it was trying to keep in.

We did a lot of things to keep ourselves busy on line, one of them being the cha-cha slide. This was mainly just to keep us warm. One would think that doing the cha cha slide would result in us getting strange looks from fellow waiters-in-line, but a few people joined in. They too, needed to keep warm. We slid to the left, to the right, reversed and crisscrossed all in an attempt not to freeze. Getting down low kept our spirits high.

 My mother told me never to talk to strangers, but we needed someone to take a group photo of my friends and I. We enlisted a girl named Alyssa for this very important task. Alyssa was about 5’2, with thick, dark, curly hair. Her olive-toned face had a pronounced nose and cheekbones with a jawline that could cut diamonds.  Her curvy figure was outfitted in medium wash denim overalls with a white t shirt underneath. Over this she wore a faded blue flannel and black vans. She looked about as old as a college freshman but was mannered in such a way that made it seem as if she had walked this earth for centuries. Throughout the conversations we had whilst waiting on line, I got to see her wise, relaxed, confident and calm personality. Her calm, almost masculine nature contrasted heavily with her shy girlfriends sweeter disposition. Her interjections in our conversation consisted primarily of a head nod followed by a glossy lipped smile. They looked happy with their fingers intertwined. Eventually, we made it to the front of the line, and our parties were forced to part, before we passed through the metal detectors, I followed them both on Instagram, where I would learn that they were in a long distance relationship and lived states away from each other.

Nothing can describe the joy that comes with seeing your favorite artist live with a group of your favorite people. At concerts, I am a different me, and yet more myself. I am open, I am loud, I jump, I scream, and I cry. I do this in unison with hundreds of strangers whom I have so much in common with but whose lives will forever remain unknown to me. Though we are all strangers, we appreciate each other, and the community we’ve helped create around supporting Dodie. This elated energy was almost too evident when the light came down and member of the band walked on stage. The small space was bubbling with excitement, and when Dodie made her entrance, we exploded. As she emerged from stage left this feeling is apparent within every person in the room. We are all thinking “She’s real! There she is!”. We are all looking at the same 23-year-old girl who’s come all the way from Epping, Great Britain to play a show here at Brooklyn Steel. The same girl who’s made us all cry, laugh and encouraged us to feel and rejoice in our human vices. As we all gaze up at the angel in the gray dress made of lace and tulle, with glitter on her cheeks, and cascading brown locks, we see her bright toothy smile gazing back at us. For a fraction of a millisecond, I almost feel like she’s smiling at me. I, along with 1,200 other people, feel at home as she begins playing the first song in her set.