A continuation of a thought
Mood:  quizzical
I left this out of the Tiesto blog at the time that I made it. But perhaps it does need to be said. It remains on my mind and not in an unpleasant way. But reality bites, sometimes.

While I was there at the Amp, dancing and just being myself, this boy dances up to me. He must have been about 21 at best, just legal enough to get inside. Cute kid too. He wants to give me a hug, no big deal it's obviously friendly, not flirty. He kisses my cheek too, kinda sweet. Then he looks down at me, (Okay so I am 5'4' and he's probably close to 6') and says, "It is so cool to see you here, all dancing and having fun with us, and you're so old! It makes me happy."

*click*

How do you respond to that? How do you feel when that happens?

On the one hand, I never really worry about what anyone else thinks about me, I am secure in what I am. On the other hand, was I actually making a spectacle of myself? I keep forgetting how grandmotherly I look these days, and I have pictures from that night ... that I will figure out how to insert later.

The gripping hand is, it was actually a compliment, however it came out and I took it as such. Cute kid, really.

I decided that night to be okay with it, and that pretty much stands true today. I will be fifty this year and nothing can change that. But my soul does not have to age even as my body does and my mind is young and alert. Good enough. Eat your heart out, Dorian Gray, youth is not as important as attitude, and all I am comes from where I have been.

DeeDee

Things Tiesto taught me - Bass is a Texture
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Moonlight Sonata - to come down.
This is the text of the first Blog I did, when I had no place to do it ... transfered here from FireFlyFans.net exactly as I wrote it the night/morning it happened. No editing, although I could have said it better. For the record, this was December 8,2004

***

And I don't mean the fish. Let me explain.

It's 3:58 in the morning, and I just got home. I have just had a profound experience. Not a moving experience, but profound none-the-less. I am exhausted, dehydrated, and exhilirated all at the same time. Late as it is, I am brewing a lovely combo of peppermint and cammomile to soothe me once I get this off my chest. Enough foreplay ...

Tonight Tiesto played in a club in Ybor City, which is in Tampa, which is where I am. One of my good friends is into trance, and he decided I really needed to see the Number One DJ in the world. OK, I was definitely up for that - I have some trance music and I like it. So I agreed to go with him and got a ticket. It never really occured to me this was at a Club. I am clueless about such things, although I should have had a hint when he told me to wear comfortable shoes. (Which I did. Which still did not prepare me for being on my feet for 5 hours straight.)

So here I am. In a crowd. In a club. It's 10:00 and the crowd is just starting to form up. There are two DJ's ahead of the main act to warm up the crowd. It works in my case - I start grooving the minute I walk in the door, just moving to the music. It's all good and no one laughs at me. I meet several new people who's names I do not know, because I can't hear but every 5th word or so of anything anyone is saying. I nod and smile alot. This goes on till midnight or so, much music - much dance. Loud,yes, but nothing I can't handle. There are lasers and banks of bright lights, and occasional smoke all being coordinated by someone who knows what they are doing and timed with the music and for the mood. Killer stuff! I am completely grooved in and hangin' easy. Well, in a manner of speaking. I half expected my hip to give out early in the evening and while that never happened, I have no illusions of how well I will be walkin' on the morrow. And this is the warmup. Every thirty minutes or so they remind us Tiesto is coming, as if we are going to forget that!

This club, one of it's big main attractions, and I was not fond of it, is this circular dance floor. It moves. In a circle. It has a two level platform in the center. During the first two hours we are there we end up dancing our way into the center of the dancefloor, and there we wait. Prime location for the feast to come.

Suddenly I realize the time must have come. The dancefloor has stopped moving and would you know we are absolutely in front of the upper level stage. Perfect placement. And then it starts ...

Now understand this. Decoy has taught me a bit about sound, and speakers and placement and stuff like that there. Tiesto opened with a wash/wave of light, sound, color ... and I realized that serendipity had given me a new experience. I was about one foot off of being at the exact apex of every speaker in the house. I was caught in the crossfire as it were.

Loud is not the proper concept. You can grasp loud. This was a palpable presence - something that actually grasped you, forced the air back outside of your lungs. My vision blurred, reacting to a combination of how hard the floor was vibrating to the beat, and I think the air in front of me was actually shimmering from the vibration ... it was ... intense.

This concert or whatever you choose to call it, is a cooperative effort between the DJ and his audience. They feed off of each other. No two concerts will really be the same, or such is my understanding. I surely can see it, saw it in action tonight.

Third song - the breakdown section where it goes quiet and then builds back to a heavy beat climax. He brings it down and the crowd knows what is coming ... he starts to bring it up, and holds, and holds and holds - there is a pattern to these things and at the point where it should have taken off again we are still holding. The audience is anticipating the moment ... and you can feel the tension build and the anticipation.

And then he hit us with the full restoration of the beat, the light bank, the full bass caress/mugging and a blast of smoke and frigid air which was very welcome in the hot room. And I think my brain melted from the sensation overload.

This went on for three hours. Eventually due to crowd pressure and my own mental health needs, I moved away from the apex of sound into a quieter backwater and just ... coasted in a manner of speaking. Which is still a profound and intense experience for this middle-aged music fan.

If Tiesto comes to your town - go! Wear comfortable shoes. Don't try to be prepared - I don't think you can be prepared unless trance music is your whole music preference.

You will not regret it. You will not forget it. Ever.

DeeDee