So, I’m seeing Sleep Token live for the first time this October.
Before I begin, I need to preface this by saying that I have, over the course of my adult life, been to far more live shows alone than I have with friends or other people. Hundreds of them really. For the most part, I don’t mind it. I’m there to see and hear and experience an artist in the live setting and that isn’t always easy to do if you’re expected to also interact socially. Also, it should be noted that I spent a good chunk of my twenties working in the music industry, so I’ve been on the inside of some huge concert tours. Subsequently, I also find live shows challenging, because I spend more time than I should checking out the production rather than just losing myself in the show – I’m getting better about that, but it’s been a very difficult habit to break. Though if I can get to a show more than once, that also helps.
I also should preface this essay by admitting that I am very late to the Sleep Token party (huge shoutouts to David and Aaron for pointing me in their direction and I blame both of you for creating this monster). Having really only started listening to them at the beginning of this year. Now, I’m one of those people who firmly believe that it’s not when you get on the bandwagon, but that you got on it at all. So if that’s a problem for you, then I guess just stop reading now. I’m still learning about the band lore, which I’m not really going to get into here, since it’s incredibly extensive. But the lore is part of the reason for these thoughts…and it is this;
I am actually quite nervous about seeing Sleep Token alone.
And it has nothing to do with the genre of music they’re identified as being a “part” of or the fans that get identified into that genre. The fans I’ve met so far are lovely and passionate about the tokens that this band offers to the God(dess) they serve within the lore they’ve crafted. I’m apprehensive because I know that this particular band writes music meant to move. Meant to create an emotional link between art, artist, and listener. And, as such, I’m certain that I will have a very, very visceral reaction to these songs outside of the context of the album setting. Because I am one of those people who are deeply, emotionally moved by music of all kind.
A symphony can drive me to tears.
The perfect pop song? Gets me moving like no other.
Music can both raise and plummet my mood in three bars.
I don’t just hear music, I feel it in my heart, mind, soul.
In my very viscera.
And given the nature of this band. The sheer expanse of Vessel’s lyrics, the raw emotion that his words evoke are nearly unmatched in this industry. Anger, control, pain, power, love, lust, manipulation, uncertainty, enlightenment, despair, self-worth (or lack thereof), all woven together in a tapestry between all-too brief moments of peace. There are elements of all of these emotions not just within the narrative arc of Sleep Token’s albums, but within a single song itself. Vessel can (and often does) swing wildly between confident arrogance only to deteriorate to a despair so profound in the next line that it’s a lyrical whiplash. While the other members of the band follow in kind with their instrumentation. Building and receding between genres like a knife through skin.
It is because of this musical styling that draws many of their listeners to worship-like devotion, and based on what I’ve seen on YouTube, going to their shows, I suspect, will be more akin to going to “church” than to a mere rock concert. These songs feel holy. Like they should be treated with careful reverence. Like a precious gift of Vessel’s ability to shape mood and emotion so thoroughly that might just be life-altering.
So the disquiet I’m seizing upon is simply that this feels like something that perhaps should not be experienced alone. That I will desire, crave a hand to hold, a body to crash into, a whisper of reassurance when Vessel takes us fully to worship and I can’t hold it together anymore.
And while I know that there will be roughly 20,000 other people also in the room experiencing various levels of the same sensation, I know how I react when the music hits with a gut punch that Mike Tyson would be envious of. And that this experience may render a spiritual rapture that brings me to my knees.