Crash Love

So, it's that time again: AFI is hard at work on their eighth full-length, and as usual are involving their fans pretty extensively in the process. They recently had this contest called Begin Transmission, where they allowed fans to record short videos and the winners were lucky enough to come do backup vocals on the new record. Also as usual, the buzz and buildup surrounding the new album has given rise to a familiar tingling and excitement in me and I'm sure in others. Waiting for a new album by a band that has been in your life for so long is an experience that is hard to describe, an almost unquantifiable sense of longing and just plain jittery excitement.



Similar to other areas of life, true lovers of music all have "that" band: the band they heard when they were young, the first band to open their eyes and hearts, to enter their minds and lives in a way that art never has before. Initially this first love is sloppy and exciting and ridiculous, inciting decisions to go vegan or dye your hair pink or change your religion, and at first it seems impossible to imagine parting with this feeling, to ever not be irrevocably in love with this band. As time goes on, things change, although not completely. Maturity kicks in, the idea of never parting with a love may start to seem short-thought and immature, you may even not listen to them for long periods at a time. Even during these periods, at times when you may not like a band as much on the outside, or when they might be making decisions that make you shake your head and wonder, one quick look at an old concert ticket or a picture or even a quick thought to how their art changed your life will offer that sharp nostalgia, a drop in your stomach and a smile that won't easily fade. Even at these moments when you feel so far from that part of your life, when you may claim to feel the same way about another band or when your thoughts and habits have completely changed, the unshakeable fact that they changed your life at one point can never be taken away from you. Cynics may look back at these youthful moments with disdain, only being able to see the mistakes and blunders pervading this portion of one's life, but remembering this kind of love will more than often always be able to open one's eyes and reignite the fire in their heart, triggering a longing that can either be shrugged off as unrealistic nostalgia, or accepted and cherised as that small part of everyone that refuses to grow up, in the best possible way.

Once in awhile, "this" band will re-enter your life, if you let it. More often than not, the ability to let this kind of love back in will come multiple times in someones life, if you're lucky. And if you let it back in, despite the changes and disappointments that may have occurred along the way, you'll realize that it never really left.

And never will.