Not Here: Absolution Fest Started With a Missed Act and a Panic Attack (With Audio)

From the collection titled "This is a door to somewhere else: Night one of Absolution Fest 2023."

When I bought my ticket to Absolution Fest in early 2023, I was returning to my practice stacking shows in my schedule as much as I could—I’d been missing from my subculture for far too long. I drew a blank when folks began asking what shows I was going to because I was….overwhelmed by the options, the task of catching up.

It felt like constantly shouting: HEY, whose beep boop is THIS, raise your hand.

But I have friends in digital spaces, and the playlists and show recommendations rolled in, one event being Mark Paradise’s baby we are here to talk about. I felt a little overwhelmed with everything I’d missed over the decade when I went missing, but I tabled some of the bands on the bill because…I prefer to hear bands live first.

I’ll admit this right up front: I had never heard of most of the bands that played at Absolution Fest (2023) until I bought my pass, but even then, I bought a lot of tickets to a lot of shows and many of them were ones I hadn’t invested in fully. I clutch my pearls, now, if I remember past me saying: “wait, who’s Light Asylum?” 

YIKES. I told you, I was sick……sick in the kind of way where it feels like you’ve died. You’re a zombie of your former self—you stop reading, stop listening to music, find any way possible to stay alive, then accept every medication they hand you.

It’s sad enough that losing everything feels like more of the same.

Scrolling through the bands scheduled to appear–Priest, KANGA, Nuovo Testamento, Empathy Test, Light Asylum–guys, I had no idea who you were and neither did some others in attendance. But now? You’re on the daily and part of that is owing the the fest’s organization of every band on the same stage. If I’d been forced to choose between Empathy Test or Priest, I wouldn’t have “Demons” in my playlists to sing in the car.

I want the tastemakers in my preferred genres to choose what I should hear, which is why a DJ organizing this festival is perfect to me, and I trust Mark Paradise’s taste.

Absolution Fest is not a bloated festival where you pay $300 or more to run around and try real, real hard to catch all the acts and then find yourself watching mostly your faves and discovering little else. Give me three stages and I’m so exhausted that I need a snack and a nap between my destination bands on these crazy days— I know I’m personally also looking to *find* bands. And I did.

So, in that context, I guess it’s inexcusable that we missed the first band.

But, in actuality, finding the music isn’t really my thing; it’s not a priority to me to be the person who finds the thing or the person telling you the thing is good. I want to start conversations about how we’re experiencing the thing. I believe many songs have a shared experience in that we put on Nick Cave’s “Girl in Amber” and find ourselves in a hole, but a conversation about why that is could lead…..anywhere.

But I can quickly hear interpolation or similarities, Google-Fu it or ask the right people, interpret the shift in meaning in the mimesis inherent in a genre, and write meaningfully how your music affects my life. I’m not great at recognizing micro-genres—you don’t need me to when Karen Best exists.

We all love a good source to turn us on to what’s new—we arguably need that more than what I’m doing—but it’s not what I do. Instead, I’m here to talk about something like:

“I had no idea that so many other young women gave so many parts of themselves away, and that it was a massive source of my own pain, until I listened to “Little Earthquakes” and sobbed for days because….what was I supposed to do NEXT? I couldn’t NOT date dudes…..or could I? And BAM, I realized I am bisexual with alarming speed. And yet, I waited to talk openly about it and wasted my own precious time.” 

OR

“I had no idea how thirsty I was for sex until Priest’s “Ceremony” popped up on my playlist in the car driving home from Nashville and understood with great clarity why Tindr is a thing—like, f*ck, I hate the process of healing where I knew to go someplace I know nary a soul and just observe. If Shannen Funchess says the Prince of Peace doesn’t have to know about it in her music, maybe I’m doing this wrong, but you know….my attachment issues will know. And I laughed so hard as I also wept for a glass of water.

And you know, men are complaining online that we’re doing this and I wonder how many of them think about sex while listening to the bang-clang beep boop, too.”

But still…… I felt old. The kids are coming up from behind¹ and I am not cool; I am a collector of coping mechanisms and music has been at the center of my life since I was a child. I stand with my beak open while I scream-peep like a baby bird until somebody else shoves some music down my throat. 

As I mentioned in the intro piece, 2023 was the year of reconnecting to music and my friends began dropping sounds in my lap as I struggled to heal. Playlists and show recommendations were aplenty, but my friend S (who I mentioned in the intro) was the person who recommended Absolution Fest first….and continues to aid and abet my addiction in my ogoing digital stack of concert tickets.

Really, it was a place to start because, look: I know I abandoned my subculture and my music and some of my people, but can you not just glance at the prospect of trying to help raise children, trying to start your career….and then having every single thing you’ve done become undone because your body now hates you?

I love you, stop it.

By the time I arrived at our place in Ybor on day one, my life was different and I looked different. I’d lost juuust enough hope.

I looked at the clock. “SHIT,” I shouted as I was banging my hands on the clickety clack to find the bands on YouTube. “We’re missing the first band…they’re called ‘Last Grasp’ and I didn’t wanna miss anything!” 

Best was still doing her always-perfect eyeliner while Blackwell declared–erroneously–that her outfit was “simple’ while messing with what seemed like a revolving door of accessories and while I periodically caught myself zombie-watching Black Rose Burning videos. I couldn’t stop thinking about the enormity of change happening mere days after the fest ended. 

Can I do even more change and stay sane? Have I ever actually been sane, anyway?

“Ok, so if we’re missing Last Grasp, then Aeon Rings, then Violet Silhouette.”

I started clickety clacking on YouTube and started pulling up videos neither of them could see while getting ready, but still gave some running commentary. I was excited after hearing “Fully Operational” because I was going to need some energy. Best’s commentary while focusing on her eyes suggested she’d already seen the official videos, anyway, because of course she had.

When we arrived in our Uber, there was a chicken waddling its way to Crowbar and I just thought that was hilarious, but the other two Mad Girls can be like stone most of the time while I flail around like a 12-year-old……the abused one. OOoo, that took a turn.

I make a lot of jokes to entertain myself now and I’ve fully accepted my identity as an imp–and there are people who are surprisingly entertained by this attitude. I’m inventive as hell and you have to like invention the way some people like ham and pineapple on pizza. 

But also, don’t be a sketchy dude on the Internet or you’ll find yourself at the bottom of this whirlwind wondering why you’re terrified the woman you pinged to fuck your girlfriend got her information, suggested she’d come around, and then deleted her entire accounts so you can wait in fear.

People have always acknowledged that I can be childlike, but to also never forget that I have a cold streak and can use my words to ruin at least a couple of weeks of your life. But I was there for the betterment of my own and I’m known for dodging people like the plague to save their feelings from what I would say.

I can’t stress enough how essential this is to knowing me. It’s so easy to think I hate you, and yet, I’m told knowing I do doesn’t make the pain of my absence easier, it makes it harder to feel the silence.

I would be reminded of one extremely painful thing that brings me here in my history of human relationships and the reminder of that particular man happened within an hour of stepping into Crowbar that night.

This Is a Door to Somewhere Else

Not long after entering, a beautiful woman appeared—seemingly out of nowhere—and reached over to take my face, turn my cheek, and plant a passionate kiss on my cheek. Before disappearing again, she whispered in my ear: “you’re beautiful.”

It’s the kind of thing I probably did when I was young, to be honest, so I knew she meant it and also meant to arouse my curiosity. I figured that was….auspicious.

But as I stepped toward and waited at the bar, I settled into the buzz of the attendees and began taking note of where things were when a thought passed through me:

This is a door to somewhere else. 

This is how I write. A line arrives and my mind starts recording everything around me at a higher rate than usual—it’s strange because it’s not trauma itself triggering hyper-vigilance, but live music creates a mental space to safely consider the state of the wound itself. I acknowledge what I’m feeling and I have to acknowledge what needs to be healed to heal at all.

And I was thinking about how I was leaving—how I was going somewhere else and, yet, already felt like I’d left.

Music brings the things I can’t face or have forgotten front and center; my inner narrator also visualizes what I need to feel for the dopamine to do its job.

When you know that a huge change is arriving in a matter of days, but also know so little about what that experience will detail, you’re forced to think about the impact of the past on your decision. You chose to experience something different because what you have isn’t serving you in that time—I knew I wasn’t going to address my remaining, staggering grief in the space I’d faced it and if I ever returned to live, I’d have to hit reset on most of my life.

I’d already begun reclaiming myself through other means, such as fashion, which had been successful and I had a lot of “where’d you get that” questions that night (See footnotes for fashion info here)²

Sweaty as HELL by the time Violet Silhouette started.

Blackwell and Best quickly established their approaches as Blackwell decided to take her “simple” outfit to a seat toward the back and Best stood with me and blinked a bit and made her “I’m thinking about this” face and said, “they’re good.” That’s hefty praise from that source. I began doing my signature “Deneuve in The Hunger” skulking to figure out the venue and where the people who are too tall were standing.

While the second band was playing, I figured out how I was going to manage this festival.

I started doing my spatial math scenario where I figure out where I’m going to stand for the longer term. I have to take into consideration several factors in the equation and it was my first time at Crowbar.

immersion / (view + neurological response) x projected stamina = my audience location

You can ask why I stood where I stood and hear commentary on volume, visual factors, photo/video strategies…and more stuff you’ll either think it’s intelligent design or needless needle-nosing. Either way, you’ll know it’s authentic because I can’t do or be anything else.

The second band played a song that later came to be associated with a now-former romantic interest who has blue eyes. It’s no longer even about the festival itself, per se, but about what I found there and became part of the entire year following Absolution Fest.

It’s not about whether or not any of this is a perfect fit, it’s about the DJ in my head who decides to pull that particular song file and set it on that particular moment at the time I see a thing.

But now, I can’t listen to the song without remembering that exact moment so many months after my temporary move to Nashville. I think this is less strange than I’m making it sound, I’m just being Spectrum Girl and over-explaining everything because trauma.

I couldn’t quiiiiite do the math before Aeon Rings left the stage, but I was inching closer to the front, as you can see in my photos and videos.

Again, we missed Last Grasp, which I regret, but I mentioned in the first post that we traded that in for our stress levels and I felt very little anxiety….which was unusual for me and made it worth it, though I imagine Last Grasp wants to give me the middle finger for being missing in this whole series, which is why I continue to bring them up despite not seeing them.

Is Last Grasp in the room with us, now?

I spent most of the second band’s performance trying to gauge if I’d make it the whole night and figuring out where to stand, but my brain left the building at one point. That’s really what music inspires for me. I think of a sound or a lyric later because it can perpetually inform my experiences by triggering reflection and invention.

We made it to the front by the end of the second band’s performance.

Blinking and finding myself standing at Crowbar a decade after losing my grip on shows felt like I’d taken a voyage through space and time. I wasn’t okay, but I was improved by 6 months of regular live music experiences, wherein part of the puzzle was to figure out the different routines for different venues. Part of that made me more at ease by the time Absolution Fest happened.

I also knew I was there to process and mentally prepare for more life changes in my rather bold plan.

People have always accused me of using live music to run away from my problems, but I find I can’t run toward them without enough dopamine to fuel the parts of me that give a sh*t. When the music fills the space around me, I feel like…lemme try to convey it….

–Like I did one of those snazzy slights of hand where I open a lawn chair by using one firm hand..like I didn’t have to work for this comfort (though I did, this shit is expensive).

–Like somebody else went ahead to find the food and WOW, they delivered it, too. Thank you for foraging so I could just nom on this, though the delivery fee might be steep.

–Like I’m at Epcot back in the 80s when everything felt like the embodiment of beeping and booping, though this is mostly for synth sounds—bands who do working synth are keeping that spirit alive for me.

–Like my troubles are behind me and someone else is professionally driving the bus and I can just….have a sit and a snack. Bye troubles! I don’t have to run when they have these really cool things I can just…..yeah, I don’t even need the lawn chair….

–Like I’ve traveled back in time to the 18th century to hear something live and I feel sorry for all of these people who had to learn to do all the things if they wanted to hear it at home. Also, I don’t have the lice they do.

My brain can do a lot in a blink, but there’s a price: anxiety and overwhelm can creep in within a second—it can go from a lyric triggering a memory to a place where the music itself begins playing on top of the memory I’m already processing and we have a weird fugue state.

This is why I began using my phone at shows as early as 2010. When you decide to have another drop I wasn’t expecting, I’d prefer to just look at you through my camera lens for a minute or look down.

Just….please, y’all…let me have my phone.

If you let me have my phone, I’ll work for you. I take interesting angles and am pretty bold about what I capture. Every time I share a dude’s cut torso, somebody picks it up and throws it in a Reddit chat or something. It can be your publicity, ok?

I love catching performers at the coolest moment—I think it’s fun. If you’re Jonathan Horstmann and decide to leave through the ceiling, I want to catch your bottom half in motion and make a joke about glass ceilings.

And when I’m pushed into overwhelm I can vacate the area right in front of the stage and lose my spot…. or I can watch you through my phone intermittently for 5 minutes and be fine and still use it to share what you do.

I think we need a new conversation about phones at shows.

If live music is my moment of discovery, my videos have been for people playing at home. Most people don’t buy concert tickets for bands they aren’t already fans of, but will still acknowledge that live is a great way to discover bands. It’s why lots of folks don’t want to miss the opening band or why they like the moment where they lean over to say “oh, hey, who is this? Chappell Roan or something? I like her….”

I get that it can be annoying to others in the audience when it’s intrusive, but my philosophy as far back as 2009 was that sharing the experience online was part of the experience for me. When you are agoraphobic, you can tell yourself that others will enjoy what you’re doing or that it’ll spur conversations with people with which you’d otherwise never exchange ideas, and it might give you the push it does for me. Maybe your socials are your diary and you’re saving it there—it’s your timeline.

All of this (*waves hands around music in digital spaces*) is all an experiment in your methods for pleasure/coping and you can find the equation that works for you. Music is likely already important to you or you wouldn’t be reading this, but live music in particular is where I do therapy that isn’t technically therapy, but maybe should be covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield for the world of good it does for my mental well- being.

…Or… maybe I’m just…..alone in the ways I cope and the weird way I make this life something I keep choosing to live.

But back to Crowbar for a moment because Violet Silhouette was about to go on.

“Hey, have you heard these guys, Blackwell?” She looks down from her taller-in-boots height like it was a bug. “Violent….violent what?

“NO No no, it’s Violet Silhouette, Violet. I dunno what that means….”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything, right?” And I think she went to get a drink and sit in the back.

I looked at her like she had three heads as she was shifting to step away. It was me talking…of course it had to mean something. I wanted another drink, but I realized I’d inched to the front and looked back like I’d come way too far to turn back, now.

As Violet Silhouette began setting up, I saw a man I swore I’d seen before and then realized—no, that was trauma spiking because Zaii Valdes looked exactly like one of my exes that night with his outfit and his hair, a face I haven’t seen in person since I was 22 years old.

The man who was 27 when I was 18. I know. It’s……..bad. But you know, the good part about reminders of old traumas is that we can reflect on what has changed. I have and I’m doing my best to keep this train running right by stops that smell the same. He’s the ex known as “that ex” because he was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive in his fear of losing what he damned well knew he shouldn’t touch.

The ex arguably worse than the one we’re all healing from; the cycles of my relationships have to end and that’s what I’m working on, so I don’t think it’s BAD that Valdes looks like him.

I got a shot and texted my best friend…the best friend who liked my ex before I did and I paid dearly for it. I sent it and told her about it and she said it was weird. The thing is, this is how he dressed in the 90s, too. I would see another apparition of this man in Nashville at a Royal and the Serpent Show, clearly indicating that wound never quite healed.

As we started chatting, I mentioned that he looked like Ted Bundy and the association between my ex and Bundy became apparent because…..my ex had that vibe.

I had to think about this while they were testing things and starting to play and I couldn’t get it out of my head….and that’s when I noticed a feeling I had only felt twice since 2022:

Tingling hands. Numb fingertips. A flutter in my chest. Now a numb cheek, needles on my lips. It was a panic attack and I had to begin using every Jedi mind trick against mySELF to avoid falling right there at the venue while I also play it very, very cool so as not to let on to the people standing around me that this chick is about to fall over.

As I started to breathe right, I realized something: I was in for a ride at this festival.

Not here not here not here……please….not here….

Next post up: Violet Silhouette goes feral on the stage, so pay attention!

1. LCD Soundsystem, “Losing My Edge”

2. Vintage 80s glittery shrug—from Threads Emporium in Holly Hill, FL. / Black matte rosary necklace with lightning bolt—Katia designs / Faux Leather sleeveless bodysuit with zip—Naked Wardrobe / earrings—from Prometheus Esoterica