"The Bamboozle"

Last May I attended a concert called "Bamboozle" which is an annual two-day concert that occurs rain or shine in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This festival incorporates several different bands and artists every year. A few friends and I decided that we wanted to go to this concert because it was supposedly a lot of fun, and especially because we wanted to see one of our favorite bands at the time, Fall Out Boy. Because we were mostly coming to the concert to see Fall Out Boy perform, we all purchased Fall Out Boy t-shirts and wore sunglasses with our converse sneakers (don't make fun!). We were really excited, but had no idea what we were in for because we had done little research and had assumed that we would see Fall Out Boy and maybe a few other similar bands and then home.

As soon as we got there we realized that our assumptions about this concert were very wrong. There were all different types of people. And yes, although I don't want to admit it I have to say that I was guilty of stereotyping each and every one of them. There were people who were dressed in all black, people wearing checkered Vans sneakers, people with nose-rings, mohawks, silver chains, streaks in their hair, and so much more. I was automatically intimidated and immediately I felt out of place. We went to the stage where Fall Out Boy was supposed to be playing, but little did we know that prior to Fall Out Boy there were numerous bands, including Cartel, The Get Up Kids, Dead Man Dreaming, Paramore, and so many more. I had never heard of any of these bands and assumed that they were weird and not entertaining. One of my friends even said, "ewwwwwww these people are so emo" when Cartel began to perform on stage.

The only other concerts that I had ever been to were a Ricky Martin concert, Z100's "Zootopia", a Britney Spears Concert, an OAR concert, and a Dave Matthews Band Concert. I had never seen anything like what I was witnessing at Bamboozle. People were being thrown in the air and pouring beer on each other. My friends and I were holding on to each other for dear life because we thought we were going to be trampled. We did not understand what was going on. My jean shorts were covered in beer and my hair had transformed from straight to curly in a matter of minutes.

What is the point of this story? The point is that I had been so closed minded about the type of music that I listened to and for the first time I was being exposed to a new way of thought and a new way that people identified themselves. People were calling us "posers" when we walked by because it was so blatantly obvious that we did not understand the magnitude of the concert that we had bought tickets for. Everyone around us took their music and not only listened to it, but they so clearly embraced it and showed their devotion by exposing their fandom through their clothing, their overall attitude, and their behavior.

Before Fall Out Boy performed, we had the opportunity to walk from stage to stage and watch other artists. I had became intrigued at the array of people that were standing in the crowd. There were mosh pits where people were standing in a giant circle jumping up and down and there were people crowd surfing through the audience with hopes of reaching the front without falling. The artists that were performing were clearly singing their own music and playing their instruments with so much passion. Most concerts that I had previously attended which were mostly pop concerts, it was hard to tell if the performers were lip-singing or not. The performances that we had witnessed that day were so real.

This experience taught me so much about broadening my horizons. I have spent the past week reflecting on this particular concert and going back in time to research the bands that I had watched perform. I recently saw the movie Alice and Wonderland, and upon viewing the movie I noticed that the band Family Force 5, who I had watched perform at Bamboozle had a song in the album for the movie titled Topsy Turvy. Though this song is not something that I may not have ever stumbled upon, I recognized the voice of the band from seeing them at Bamboozle, and now this song has become one of my favorite songs.

The point of this blog post is that I want to encourage my readers to not make judgments about certain artists or groups based on the way the band appears or the way that the fans dress or act. It is important to embrace different types of music and step outside the box by experimenting with all types of music. Though I do not consider my music preference to be more alternative or "emo", I have found that I happen to love several songs that fall under this category of music. I am happy that Bamboozle opened my eyes to a musical culture that I would have otherwise not thought to pay much attention to.