Many Staples students would agree that going to concerts is more about the experience than about the performer.  Instead of looking forward to music, students look forward to a train ride and a night inNew York Citywith a group of friends. 

At Staples, house music concerts are becoming more and more popular. This fall, “every human being at Staples” attended concerts such as GlowFest and Deadmau5, according to Shelby Schulman ’12. Dayglow and Avicii are also coming to the tri-state area and Staples students have been anxiously awaiting the two events. 

“The funny thing is that people don’t go to these concerts for the music, they go for the experience. Deadmau5 didn’t come on until11:30, and at that point, I had completely forgotten that I was even there for him,” said a junior girl on the soccer team, who wished to remain anonymous.

The concert experience seems to be divided into three major parts: getting ready, the concert itself, and the after-effects.

Before

On the night of a concert, a group of friends will gather to get ready with one another. They get dressed at one person’s house and then all go to the train station together, according to Schulman. 

“There are more people at the station than you can imagine. One group of friends meets up with many other groups from Staples on the platform,” Schulman said.

A second junior girl, also anonymous, explained that the real draw of the train ride is pregaming. Pregaming is drinking before an event that doesn’t allow alcohol, so that the feeling of being drunk lasts through the night.

“On the train, everyone drinks vodka from a Gatorade bottle. The trick is to drink at the right time, so you begin to feel it while you are at the concert. Being sobe at a concert is just not fun,” the girl said.

During

Being at the concert is a whole new experience.

“The atmosphere is just wild. On the dance floor, you can barely move without bumping into another drunk, sweaty kid. And it’s so loud that by the end of the night, you feel like your eardrums are bursting,” said the junior soccer player.

“I didn’t care about the music, I was just there to party,” she said.

Being at these concerts is fun, both junior girls explained. It is the combination of the loud, electronic music with the sheer number of people there that makes it so different, they said. People spend the whole time dancing, both with people they know and people they don’t know.

For this reason, concerts can even be a place to meet new people. Not only are there hoards of Staples students at them, but there are also kids from all overConnecticutandNew York, explained Schulman.

At one concert that she went to, she sat down at one point because she was tired. “I made some new friends who sat down with me; I don’t even know who they were or where they were from, but it was cool to talk to them,” she said. 

Just being at a concert is enough, explained Savannah Donahue ’13. “I don’t even think Avicii is that good but I will be with my sister, so why not go?” she said. She is going to Avicii at Colgate this spring. “Concerts are not about the music, they are just about being there,” she said. 

After

        Following the concert, people are left to think about what the experience truly means. The train is about getting ready for the actual concert. The concert is about dancing, partying, meeting new friends.

        The big picture, though, is more than just the night of the concert. Going into the city with a whole group of high school friends is an experience in and of itself.

“When my friends and I go to concerts, we are no longer spending a Friday or Saturday night inWestportand I feel really independent,” Schulman said. The independent feeling that people get from going to concerts makes the actual experience of being there even more fun, she explained.

Many teams at Staples also go to these concerts together. Many girls on the soccer team went to Deadmau5 together, and some members of the softball team are going to Avicii together.

“Going to a concert as a team can be a whole different experience than just hanging out on the weekend because we are traveling together and spending a long night far from home,” said Ryan Kirshner ’13, a varsity soccer player.

She explained that not only is being there fun, but the “concert experience” can help bring the team closer.

Whether you attend a concert with your team or just your friends, you can always manage to have a good time at a concert.  And now with the rise of house music, knowing the words to the music is not an issue.