The Fourth of July

We were those ‘young adults’ your parents warned you about. Running through the streets,  tripping over each others feet, and snapping selfies as if the memories we were creating were as transient as the drinks in our hand.

We clung desperately to each others arms while attempting to navigate the crowds. On a parkway filled with thousands, there were about 15 of us foolishly attempting to stay together. As was inevitable, we split apart. Traversing through the crowds, the army of 15, became a troop of seven.

Standing beneath a street light we regrouped and refueled. Having arrived to the Parkway just as the concert was beginning, our only mission was to find a spot with at least a partial view of the concert stage. Without consideration for our next move, the lyrical happenings of Jennifer Hudson came wafting through the crowd. “And I am telling you- I’m not going,” finishing with the classic, “And you, and you, and you, you’re gonna love me.”

Immediately thereafter, the announcer declared the next artist to come to the stage would be Nicki Minaj. There was then this massive surge from the crowd in the direction of the stage. Again, clinging desperately to each other, we found ourselves swept into the current. It was actually pretty convenient for us; if you consider our desire to get closer to the stage, yet our reluctance to make any actual moves.

At one point we looked to our left and saw that we had somehow made it into the gated concert arena. Gated, as in the area where most people had actual tickets. And we were just the rift raft that washed in.

We found seats situated close together and rather than being the sensible spectators who sit down, we stood in the chairs, selfishly bettering ourselves.

Our main desire to go to this concert was to see Ed Sheeran, perhaps you’ve heard of him. Once we found our bearings on top of the chairs, a guy with a guitar walked on stage.

I could try to give you a rundown of what happened, but the moments between him walking on stage and his final departure is merely a haze filled with incessant screaming, terrible singing, and perhaps a few tears.

As the lyrics of “Sing” faded into the distance, his unmistakable melodies wafted into the missiles of fireworks. Suddenly his lyrics, “This love is a blaze. I saw flames from the side of the stage,” took on a whole new meaning.