Plug In Baby by Muse |
|
Casselise Rowe
Motel Nightclub, Melbourne, 2001
Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, 2013
They were times of recklessness, those high school days. The memories plentiful, yet scarcely appreciated at the time. I remember the smell of the musk oil I wore, and the mixed scents of fleeting corner kisses with boys so easily adored, but just as easily forgotten. There were parties to attend every weekend, when I finally became old enough to reasonably ignore a curfew. If there were no parties, there were always nightclubs, raves, festivals and concerts or just empty houses with some absent parents.
Strobe lights and serenity, the highs of hazy release followed by regretful come downs, secrets and lies, drunkenness and denial, revival and remorse, lost moments and defining events which seemed insignificant at the time. And songs, of course, which, like time itself, lingered in the background like an ever watchful brother, accompanying you the entire time.
Immersed with a crowd of people who had their eager ears forever listening for the pulse of the alternative, I was under the radar, ready to revel in new and often strange talents. Many of my other friends had no idea who Muse was at the time, although they all do now. Typical teenage girls predominantly listened to Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani, but such artists were merely the unavoidable minor ingredients in my ever expanding musical palate.
I was sitting in the corner of a vast and smoky nightclub when I first heard Plug in Baby. The music of the evening, being spun energetically by a DJ, had passed me by, with drunken conversation garnering much of my attention. Suddenly, my ears were being deliciously assaulted by what would soon become one of the most well-known guitar riffs of my generation. It was screaming at me, it was the scream of loose youthfulness; the kind of sound that makes you want to go so wild that it may warrant arrest. The room was jumping in a mini mosh pit of about 30 people, and so I joined, covering myself in the sweat of my fellow party goers, screaming lyrics we didn’t really yet know, straight into each other’s faces.
By the time the song would conclude, I would find that I had ripped my top from my damp body leaving me bra clad. My voice was hoarse, and I was overcome with the feeling of definitive nostalgia; those moments when you smile in the present because you know then, that you will recruit that very same moment, when you are one day trying to convince the children that you don’t yet have, that you were cool once too.
It would be continually played as a favourite from then on, and would always spark the same response years later. I saw Muse live in late 2013, at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. Not with my old school mates from a decade ago – with new friends, and my mum, a recent convert to Muse.
I joined the mosh of thousands with the same enthusiasm as I had joined the one with 30 (minus the topless-ness of course; I’m an ‘adult’ now). I have always remembered that first time rather fondly though, that exquisite reckless gift from one of the greatest guitar heroes, and showmen, in history. As far as I was concerned then, and indeed now, my generation had found its answer to Freddie Mercury.
Matthew Bellamy, I thank you.
© Casselise Rowe
More on Casselise Rowe
Casselise is a Melbourne-based writer with a double major in Literature Composition and English, and is currently undertaking further studies in Philosophy. Her previous Stereo Stories were about Crazy by Gnarls Barkley and Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan. Her blog is the Ebony Inkwell.
Motel Nightclub, Melbourne, 2001
Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, 2013
They were times of recklessness, those high school days. The memories plentiful, yet scarcely appreciated at the time. I remember the smell of the musk oil I wore, and the mixed scents of fleeting corner kisses with boys so easily adored, but just as easily forgotten. There were parties to attend every weekend, when I finally became old enough to reasonably ignore a curfew. If there were no parties, there were always nightclubs, raves, festivals and concerts or just empty houses with some absent parents.
Strobe lights and serenity, the highs of hazy release followed by regretful come downs, secrets and lies, drunkenness and denial, revival and remorse, lost moments and defining events which seemed insignificant at the time. And songs, of course, which, like time itself, lingered in the background like an ever watchful brother, accompanying you the entire time.
Immersed with a crowd of people who had their eager ears forever listening for the pulse of the alternative, I was under the radar, ready to revel in new and often strange talents. Many of my other friends had no idea who Muse was at the time, although they all do now. Typical teenage girls predominantly listened to Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani, but such artists were merely the unavoidable minor ingredients in my ever expanding musical palate.
I was sitting in the corner of a vast and smoky nightclub when I first heard Plug in Baby. The music of the evening, being spun energetically by a DJ, had passed me by, with drunken conversation garnering much of my attention. Suddenly, my ears were being deliciously assaulted by what would soon become one of the most well-known guitar riffs of my generation. It was screaming at me, it was the scream of loose youthfulness; the kind of sound that makes you want to go so wild that it may warrant arrest. The room was jumping in a mini mosh pit of about 30 people, and so I joined, covering myself in the sweat of my fellow party goers, screaming lyrics we didn’t really yet know, straight into each other’s faces.
By the time the song would conclude, I would find that I had ripped my top from my damp body leaving me bra clad. My voice was hoarse, and I was overcome with the feeling of definitive nostalgia; those moments when you smile in the present because you know then, that you will recruit that very same moment, when you are one day trying to convince the children that you don’t yet have, that you were cool once too.
It would be continually played as a favourite from then on, and would always spark the same response years later. I saw Muse live in late 2013, at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. Not with my old school mates from a decade ago – with new friends, and my mum, a recent convert to Muse.
I joined the mosh of thousands with the same enthusiasm as I had joined the one with 30 (minus the topless-ness of course; I’m an ‘adult’ now). I have always remembered that first time rather fondly though, that exquisite reckless gift from one of the greatest guitar heroes, and showmen, in history. As far as I was concerned then, and indeed now, my generation had found its answer to Freddie Mercury.
Matthew Bellamy, I thank you.
© Casselise Rowe
More on Casselise Rowe
Casselise is a Melbourne-based writer with a double major in Literature Composition and English, and is currently undertaking further studies in Philosophy. Her previous Stereo Stories were about Crazy by Gnarls Barkley and Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan. Her blog is the Ebony Inkwell.