onsdag 6 Okt 2010, 19:41

Wed 6 Oct – Red Sparowes
I’ve spent most of the time both during and after the concert to understand the experience that is Red Sparowes. While some explanations come close, none of them can entirely capture the essence. Once I was inside Pustervik, I knew it was going to be special and out of the ordinary. However, I couldn’t anticipate how special. Red Sparowes isn’t mere entertainment, it’s an experience. I have come to the conclusion that the closest analogy that describes Red Sparowes is sex. Listening to Red Sparowes records is like watching porn. You get a sense of how it would be like, you can fantasize about how amazing it would be, yet it cannot beat an actual orgasm during actual sex. Red Sparowes is like auditory sex, and during the height of the concert, you experience an auditory orgasm. What makes me think that the sex analogy is at least somewhat fitting is the lack of verbal communication between performer and receiver. Even though there was a microphone on stage, it was never used. Some people yelled after a song was finished, but never once did they call out for a specific song or even call out the name of the band, so the communication between the band and the public was completely non-verbal. Furthermore, there was often minimal to no eye-contact between the band and the public. I managed to catch eye-contact once with Bryant, and that was it. The band often performed with their eyes closed, as if they were one with the music they were performing, just enjoying and savoring the moment. Like sex. There was never a need for them to fake enjoyment; their body language was crystal clear.

In order to enhance the feeling further and to probably give the public something to look at, which is common at instrumental shows, they added a video playing in the background. It was showing different images of… well, the world. Somehow, this along with the music gave me a nostalgic feeling of the 60s and made me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where we get to follow the human evolution and at the end see a fetus in space. Somehow Red Sparowes managed to induce this existential feeling in me. The music pierced me, flowed through me. I could be a fetus in a giant cosmos made out of sound waves. It was an incredibly powerful experience, and during the end of the concert I was all teary, not quite understanding why. It was just so simply beautiful, not only because the music is so atmospheric, but because the experience the music creates is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever felt in my life.

And I know I wasn’t alone feeling that way. On my way out I caught a conversation that went something along the lines that “the music was so loud I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, I could only listen”. And during the concert, there was a guy a bit to my left who was so immersed in the music he seemed to be almost in a trance. He kept slowly moving and shaking with his eyes closed, not even looking at the stage. Just listening. I’m inclined to agree that the feeling of being in trance might not be too far off. It was almost like a religious experience (I wouldn’t know as a non-religious person). If so, then I will certainly worship Red Sparowes, and I will pray that I will see them at least one more time in my life. Everything felt so surreal both during the show and afterwards. It still feels completely surreal, even though I am now at home, sitting in my bed, writing this in a futile attempt to understand what I just experienced today. It really can only be summed up in two words: Red Sparowes. If you haven’t seen them yet and are hesitating to do so, don’t. I can assure you that it is not something you will regret. Red Sparowes can not merely be listened to; it must be experienced in order to truly understand what Red Sparowes is.