“This is… incredible.” 

Me to my childhood best friend as we descended into the sea of denim and black t-shirts that was the Vans Warped Tour 30th Anniversary in Washington, DC this past summer. For the first time since 2019, droves of music fans descended upon the festival grounds for a weekend of music (loud… music), sweat, and the bizarre, communal catharsis that is the mosh pit.

The mountain air felt crisp as we pulled into Estes Park, that high altitude feeling mixing with the kind of excitement you get before seeing a band whose music was part of the soundtrack to your teens. We made the trip for the Face To Face show at the Stanley Hotel, and the whole town already felt like the right place for it.

On Sunday, October 26, I had the good fortune of finally seeing the act live and in person. Daisy Grenade came to The Roxy, one half of my favorite Cleveland, Ohio, venue Mahall’s, as support for Stand Atlantic. The Sunday crowd proved just a little bit lethargic as the show opened up. Last Night Saved My Life, the first act, did a good job of waking the slumbering crowd, who might have already been dreading their Monday morning alarm clock. But Daisy Grenade wasn’t going to settle for just “awake.” They came to set the room on fire.

I'm sitting in a Waffle House at 1 a.m. in Washington, PA, trying to collect my thoughts after two days at the Four Chord Music Festival. Back home in the mountain west, we don't have these. Our post-show tradition was always Denny's or IHOP. Tonight it's Waffle House, and I'm equal parts excited and concerned as my arms stick to the table. Will I regret this on the flight home? Maybe. But it feels like a rite of passage.

As a 30-something millennial, attending two shows in one week is a whirlwind experience. Being a y’allternative member of the scene means recalibrating your brain from event to event to avoid the effects of acute genre whiplash. Sunday night was Sierra Ferrell in DC, and by Thursday, I was prepping to see Deftones for the first time. More than the music itself, I was curious: how would the crowd energy compare between two completely different audiences?

Kismet is the word I would use to describe how I ended up going to the Motion City Soundtrack show to celebrate the upcoming release of their new album, The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World. I was heading to Chicago for several days for a work event, and since I was going to be there, I was endlessly searching for a show to go to on one of the nights I’d be in the city. However, with Riot Fest just a couple days after I leave, I realized that many bands I would want to see would be planning to be there.

And then about two weeks ago, my friend Shar sent me a post on Instagram and asked me, “Did you know about this?”

Your favorite artist, at one point in their career, was an opener for someone else. You do not know who around you is fully tuned in, fully entranced with the artist on stage, falling in love with something new. As a fellow audience member, it will not kill you to hold onto your opinions and wait to run your mouth until after the set has finished. By the way, if someone is actively pouring their heart out to the crowd onstage, I guarantee nobody around you gives a shit about your $20 meat patty. Save it for the Uber home, Debra.

This wasn’t just any scoop of ice cream. The Charmery, a Baltimore-based ice cream shop, had collaborated with one of my all-time favorite bands—Coheed and Cambria—on a limited-edition special flavor: Father of Cake Believe.