empirical evidence
What happened at the Magik Markers show was throbbing, humid, dangerous. The back of the Oasis was hot hot hot. Not desert hot, like an Oasis should be, but really muggy, or as they say in some parts of the world, "close". It was really close. Then these kids who were tripping on shrooms or something started tumbling, and kind of kicking people in the face, which was weird enough but it was already weird that we were sitting down, beers being grabbed out of the way in emergency measures, guitar thrumming a line you would bounce to if bouncing were an angrier thing. Elisa stumbled into the crowd, into a confused goth man, into a fight, into the tumblers, who started hitting each other for pleasure while the goth man grew convinced Elisa was out for pain. ("I think he didn't get it," I said to her later — "Do I?" she responded.) One of the tumblers split her pants, Elisa stopped wanting to play, and a guy sitting next to the stage took the front grill off of an electric fan and started putting his face in it. It was all high-level noise and low-level anxiety, a film of moisture, microphones flying, a boot to somebody's back, lost watches and regretted sweaters. I thought I was going to get hurt. I hope they come back soon.