The Warning Chronicles P. 3
Trying to Capture a Single Moment
There’s a lot of ground to cover today: the packed, sold out music hall, the kindness of the fans who helped me when we had to make our way through the elbow to elbow people to get some water, the woman next to us whom Little Bean befriended and offered to take her to the bathroom for me.
Then there was how crazy loud the opening band was. Devil’s Twin was a last minute replacement, a local Boston band and I must say they made the most of the opportunity with a blistering seven song set that at least set the stage for the main act.
Little Bean quickly understood why we brought her ear muff sound absorbers, and she wore them through the whole show. (Like I mentioned, we were literally standing three feet away from Ale and her enormous earthquake-causing speaker.)
When The Warning finally did come on to the absolute roar of the sold out crowd, it was already 9:15pm and Little Bean’s excitement level had been notched up to 11 for nearly four hours by that time.
But she met the band like a trooper, cheering on the opening numbers, “Disciple” and “Z” and then singing along with one of her favorite songs, “Animosity.”
But it was a long set, 16 songs, and by the time the band began their closing numbers, the Spanish language “Narcisista” and “Martirio,” she was lagging, understandably.
Then something happened. Maybe it was the energy of the crowd going into that popular encore song, “Evolve.” Maybe it was the song itself: Little Bean calls it the Scream Song for the terrific Scream of Destruction the drummer Pau lets out in the middle of the song.
Whatever it was, she came alive. It was too loud to hear her, but she turned to me with raised arms, like she used to when she was a baby.
I put away my phone, secured my side bag and heaved her up onto my hip, and as our favorite band tore into their final song, something else occurred to me.
This whole evening, for me, had been about her - keeping her safe, fed, hydrated. I suddenly realized that I barely even remembered the band playing “Enter Sandman” or one of my favorite songs, “Survive.” My focus had been on encouraging and boosting Little Bean’s experience, and that was all fine.
But now here we were, covered in sweat, my arms and back beginning to ache, unable to reach my phone to take a picture of this final song, 350 people singing and cheering at our backs.
And there she was, my little girl in my arms again, bouncing to the beat, hands in the air, a spotlight lighting up her smile. And I thought to myself, this is it, right here, capture this moment. Remember this single, living moment. Store it like a photograph. Save it for later. Feel it all.
And when the band tore into the frenzy of that break down, first Ale’s thumping bass, then Dany’s shrieking slide, I boosted my daughter up as high as I could hold her, and when Pau lifted her head to the rafters and screamed, we both screamed with her, primal and joyful.
We were alive. A father and a daughter just letting loose like we were the only humans that mattered and in that moment we were the only humans that mattered. There will be a day in my future, long after she’s left the nest and I’m sitting out on my porch in my slippers that I’ll have that moment to hold on to.
I hope she will too.
Tomorrow: We wrap things up and Little Bean gets one last big surprise.
The Warning Chronicles is a series of short episodes detailing our trip to see The Warning at Brighton Music Hall in Boston and meeting the band. First, go give some love to the band, link here: The Warning. Little Bean and I had been preparing for this day for months and we thought it would be fun to give our readers and music fans a little taste of the wonderful, chaotic, unexpected day we experienced. Hope you all enjoy!
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