How the return of concerts brings hope for normalcy.

Story by Abi Hoodenpyle

I shifted my feet inside my squishy, cobalt sleeping bag.. I cracked my eyes open just in time for a raindrop to bounce off my eyelashes — rain was not expected.

The crisp morning air sliced my lungs as I opened the tent, a rude awakening at 6 a.m. Others in my tent began to shift; they too got soaked in the night.

“We expected sunny and warm, not rain all day,” said Amelia Harlocker, a long-time friend of mine.

It was a big day. Only 16 more hours until Tame Impala would perform. I expected sunshine, but the torrential downpour without any gear was the least of my worries.

The thought of being surrounded by hundreds of people in the middle of Washington was frightening. COVID-19 rates were high, and I hadn’t been around strangers in over a year.

For the past year, I had a small bubble of people I interacted with. I lived with my family where one member is immunocompromised, so I was very cautious of who I came into contact with. My four best friends lived together in an apartment in Seattle, so they became the only other people I saw.

Imagining being around hundreds of people after only being around a handful was scary. I forgot what it was like to be in a crowd. My scope was so small that even the thought of the concert made my chest heavy with anticipation.

The fear of being exposed to COVID-19 outweighed any excitement I could have felt about going to the Gorge.

Watershed is a three-day country music festival at the Gorge Amphitheater. This event took place a month before the Tame Impala concert and illuminated my underlying anxieties about attendance because Grant County, where the Gorge is located, announced an outbreak of cases connected to the festival.

“As of today, we are aware of over 160 lab confirmed COVID-19 cases across Washington state in people who attended the event. We expect more cases to be confirmed in the coming days,” said Laina Mitchell, communicable disease coordinator for Grant County Health District. “The outbreak is the first one traced to an outdoor entertainment event since the lifting of statewide COVID-19 prevention measures at the end of June.”

Throughout the course of the pandemic, there have been millions of COVID-19 cases. One hundred and sixty positive tests doesn’t seem like a lot compared to what was on the news, but thinking I would be in the same environment as the outbreak gave me anxiety — I didn’t want to become a statistic.

The other campsites began waking up. I could hear shifting in tents, drinks being cracked open and music blasting. It wasn’t even 7 a.m.

The rain temporarily subsided to light misting, so my group of girls and I began our long journey to coffee, the only thing that would help make this situation more bearable.

As we splashed in mud puddles and caked our sweats with dirt, I noticed a buzz. People were buzzing around the campsite. While walking the 500 feet to the nearest coffee stand, I could feel people jumping with excitement. I assumed they had all had their morning cup.

“From people taking little walks to meet their camping neighbors to a full on stampede upon entering, it was like people had to be there,” Harlocker said.

By 9 p.m., it was time to start the half-mile walk to the venue.

After 16 hours of sitting in a car watching movies in wet clothes, none of us felt much excitement about going. We were like a group of chihuahuas fresh out of the bath, shaking and irritated.

“As for the rain, yeah it sucked,” Harlocker said. “But it made me forget about trivial things like having my makeup and outfit perfected and focus more on having a good time with friends.”

During the trek to the venue, I was squished between hundreds of strangers funneling through muddy walls. My legs were speckled with splashes of dirt being kicked up by those around me.

Through the blur of security and ticket checking, I settled upon an open space on the lawn. Still wet from the mud, I sat and took a deep breath.

This was it — I was here. The concert was moments away from starting and all my anxieties seemed to have disappeared.

My group was socially distanced from others, so the fear of a COVID-19 spread dissipated. All my attention was centered on my friends. We considered Tame Impala our last hurrah. After this, I was leaving for college while they stayed back in Seattle. I didn’t know when I would see my best friends again, but I wasn’t sad — suddenly I was hopeful.

This experience was my closest feeling to normalcy since the pandemic first took reign. Not to mention I was with my best friends to see our favorite artist. It felt like a dream.

The concert was like a “Twilight Zone” episode. I was surrounded by hundreds of masked people enjoying a show and not thinking about the pandemic.

The growl of the bass began thumping through the speakers. Teal, pink and green lights strobed across the rows of people singing. “Well, he feels like an elephant shakin’ his big grey trunk for the hell of it,” echoed across the field. The show had begun.

As Tame Impala performed, I felt content. My friends and I were safe, and the opportunity to see more — experience more — was out there. We just needed to be patient.

On the drive home, I scheduled a COVID-19 test because the pandemic is not over. Being surrounded by like-minded people, all excited to experience normalcy again instinctively filled me with a sense of hope. After my first in-person event since the start of the pandemic, I knew that my soaked clothes and dripping sleeping bag was all worth it for evoking a newfound feeling in all that will come.