Three-day shirt
From the court of the crimson king
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Last night my dad took me to see King Crimson as an early birthday gift.
When I was younger, and had more room in my t-shirt drawer, I would have dropped the $50 for a cotton souvenir. This price applies to 4,000+ capacity venues, where the bands are old and extra famous and beloved by multiple generations. Examples: Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, the Go-Gos.Â
The lines to the merch booths stretch far. Sometimes it’s just a cluster of confused urgency, as if Radiohead’s manager could possible have underestimated the number of size L shirts they needed to order. From the back, you can barely see the goods for sale — just people pointing and holding up different sized shirts to their torsos and fumbling with their wallets.
The middle-aged rockers bring a good energy. Men come donned in band t-shirts from previous concerts, a subtle peacocking of their rocker experience. It is a signal to their fellow alt-peers. The ladies wear their t-shirts in tighter fits with bejeweled jeans and Chuck Taylors, or else they show their free spirits with flowy floral tops and long wavy hair. The rock concert removes the uniformity of adulthood in corporate American and once again invites us each to prove our understanding of the essential meaning of music through what we wear.Â
Tomorrow they will all wear the matching shirts that they are in line for right now. Mine would have gone on that night. Upon coming home sleepy and buzzing, I would have wrapped myself in that symbol of the experience, even with inevitable chemical smell of a fresh t-shirt print job.Â
Wearing the shirt is an effort to seal in the memory of hearing the songs live. There is always one or two that stick out the most. They are the songs that I’ve listened to dozens of times in my own private setting. Up until now, they have seemed like something that I owned, something that came upon me from the ether. But now I have seen them straight from the source, a magic created by some other people from my very species. Handsome men of 75 in well-tailored suits, casually shredding the way I might casually scramble an egg.
The concert t-shirt begins its life with a 3-day marathon. On the day after, it stays on in order to maintain its charge from the night before. It prompts inquiries and public reminiscences.Â
What I will share: The setlist. My favorite songs from the night. My attraction to a 75-year-old bald, mustached man who is very good at the absurd Chapman Stick. How I knew they’d play that song for the encore. How I couldn’t stop watching a man with a baseball cap, waiting for him to jump up and thrust his chubby fists into the air with every punctuation.
What I won’t share: That I kept crying over the sweet magic of a crowd of people in synch, and over the dedication of the musicians that brought us all to this point, and over the togetherness you sometimes get to feel going to a rock concert with one of your parents.Â
Crying at rock concerts comes from my mom’s side of the family. My grandma has been known to weep at the beauty of a laser show.
The concert t-shirt is left on for the second night in a row, still trying to carry the slippery, irreplicable experience into dreamland. In the morning of day two, it is tossed onto the bed for later, and returned to again for night three. Its power is now fainter than ever but still offers a soft buzz of the magic energy.Â
Eventually it must go in the wash, and this somehow diminishes its power even more. It becomes just a favorite shirt. But, if you listen to it very carefully, perhaps wrapped up in it in your bed like the very first night, you’ll hear it tell the story of rock and roll.
Loved the story. Love you.