Hanging out with my friends in Milwaukee for the weekend, we decided to attend Summerfest. Summerfest is an annual music festival held in the established Summerfest Grounds near downtown Milwaukee. For weeks each year, popular bands fill in the lineup to create a massive series of concerts. Standard entry to grounds gives access to everything except the main stage, which requires separate tickets.
This year, my friends really wanted to see the Dropkick Murphys, a band that I had only heard of thanks Shipping up to Boston, the song featured prominently in The Departed, a few years prior. They played that song as well as many other highly energetic songs with a gaelic/Irish flourish.
Before leaving, we wanted to check out Offspring, too, who performed another highly energetic set. Once again, I only knew a few of their songs, thanks to Crazy Taxi. As soon as they opening riff hit from All I Want "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah," the place exploded and I felt in harmony with the crowd.
Maybe I wrote about this in another post, but when you have crowds this massive and fully engaged in the music, it creates a feeling of synesthesia. You become part of the crowd and the crowd becomes one. It's obviously such a rush that it is easy linked and often enchanced to other mind altering substances. Also, obviously, this is the rush that people chase when going to concerts, especially of their favorite bands.
Both Dropkick Murphys and Offspring (proper) are completely outside of my musical wheelhouse, but their songs create a complete overwhelming sense of energy that it's hard not to get caught up in the wave of energy. And then fully ride that wave of energy when they perform a song you are actually in tune with.
There were plenty of other bands at Summerfest and other concerts I attended with friends where I was out of my element, but could still recognize the waves. I felt weird and awkward to "get into" the music when it was not me. Those moments always made me look forward to my next outing to a club to slip into the music I love.
However, the real awkwardness didn't occur until the next day, when we returned to watch KISS perform on the main stage. To be fair, we weren't standing in the pit for this one. We were sitting on the grass way in the back with the divorced dads. Pretty hard to be part of any synesthesia when the middle school girl in front of you is complaining to her father.
Seeing KISS live was more of a checkbox on a bucket list at this point, but they still put on a pretty okay of their hits. They were showing their age, though, as their songs didn't quite have the same energy or vocals as the recorded version of their songs from decades earlier.
Musically, it was great to get out of my element, but it really just pushed me back into the clubs.
Note: This post was made in Mar 2025 and back-dated to the time of the events
