Concerts are interesting. There is such a sense of community in the crowd at a show, especially at Sokol. People crowd-surf and dance together, and belt out the words along with their favorite musicians, and help you up if you happen to fall in the mosh. But that connection is ephemeral. As soon as you walk out the door, you see your fellow-concert goers in a different context; soon the community you had shifts, distorts, or dies. Everyone I was with at that concert has gone their separate ways. The nameless yellow-shirt boy who ended up dancing with me in the crowd drove back to his hometown. I recently got into a spat with the best friend who had invited me. The two other friends who came along are still back in our hometown, we’ve taken different paths. Who knows where the hundreds of other nameless faces that were at the show that night are now.There is so much going on and so many different characters in this video. Some have close ups, some are main focuses, some just cameos. There is the couple arguing in sign language while a young ballerina dances in the aisle, punks painting their nails and braiding their hair, men text messaging, and girls gazing out windows. They are all so caught up in their own situations, their own stories. While being immersed in their personal problems, they may be missing the fleeting sense of community that their shared journey has created. We never see where the crowd has come from or where they are going just that they were in the same journey together, doing the same dance of life.
3 comments:
Isn't it horrible that my younger siter has been to Sokol with my DAD, and i haven't?! The good news is that they only went to see Simple Plan, and not a real punk band.
I cannot express to you just how much I love this song! I have always thought the title to this song is a bit queer, however it is easy to realize how the song focuses on something much grander than “prom night”. It is amazing how a video, which could be said to relate very little to the actual video can evoke such beautiful imagery from such an ordinary scene as a public train system. I love how the video at one point focuses out of the front of the train. This view shows the movement of life each character in through this song.
I'm not going to lie, I had never heard of this band, but after watching this video, I think they're pretty good. It is very cool how you incorporate the sense of community of a concert going crowd with this video. I've been to a few concerts (most were at Pershing), and I can relate to that sense of community where people help each other out in the mosh if they fall. By contrasting that imagery with the video, you made the video easier for me to understand what was going on.
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