The white and grey windowless building was quite generic, save for the plexiglas doors and a neon green sign shining the word “Epicentre” into the late afternoon sun. The Epicentre was a city-sanctioned teen recreational center, a term so broad that it essentially provided no description at all. This particular incarnation of a teen holding facility consisted of a large room, painted black on all sides, with a small stage, lights, and sound system. As a college student, it seemed weird for me to be visiting the Epicentre. After all, I had little desire to hang out with high schoolers, most of whom were loitering in the parking lock, some of them smoking on something or another. They seemed to be hanging around to avoid school and homework. On the other hand, I was there to see a punk rock show.
Before I go any further, I should first mention that there has been no particular “scene” that I would consider myself to be a member of in high school or in college. If you were to ask people to throw me into a group, I'd probably get lumped in with the nerds or the Asians, but neither of these remained eternally consistent. The punk rock scene, however, is pretty much as far as possible from any scene that I could associate with. That being said, one of my friends was very much in the punk rock scene, even having their own band, which my friends and I were at the Epicentre to see this day.
Walking into Epicentre, our group of friends played the role of Joseph's technicolor dreamcoat entering a black and white movie. While the thirty to forty people already gathered were all dressed to blend in with the walls, save for the skulls screenprinted onto their shirts and metal studded belts, we all missed the memo and arrived in yellows, reds, and oranges. To say that we stuck out like a sore thumb would be a severe understatement. Unsure of exactly what a punk rock concert entailed, I stood towards the back of the room, conveniently the furthest spot from the massive speaker stacks threatening my ears with destruction that everyone else seemed to somehow be okay with.
As my friend's band came out, they were greeted with quiet, polite applause – relatively expected given that probably no one had heard of them besides, well, us. That changed pretty quickly as the band went into their first song; a loud number that involved the head singer jumping off the stage and moshing with the crowd. The rest of the set had the crowd jumping and yelling, while my friends and I kept our distance for fear of injury. Watching the mob mosh and thrash, I somehow expected serious spinal cord injuries to result, though perhaps with practice their necks had somehow become rubber. At the end of the set, my friend took the microphone and thanked the crowd. “Thanks also to our friends who came out to support us,” he added as an endnote, “you can tell who they are because they don't fit in at all.” And with that we became the subject of the crowds' staring, all thirty to forty of them looking at us much in the same way you'd observe animals at the zoo. I had never been more aware of my choice of clothing before.
With the next band setting up on stage, the crowds thinned, some going outside for a smoke, others taking a bathroom break, presumably to clean themselves up for the next round of jumping up and down. We made a hasty retreat towards the exit. In the parking lot, we met up with the band, who was elated with the small but enthusiastic turnout. My friend offered to get us in to the next show they were playing at, but I declined. I don't think that I would be able to pull of the skull-print shirts, studded belts, moshing, and yelling.
Though I suppose if I showed up in my normal clothes again I could say, “Hey, I'm with the band.”
