on Radiohead in the park, in august.

The last band is playing at the end of the day, on the edge of the continent, and the fog is draping itself over the trees like cobwebs. We are 60,000 and we are alone, trying to get our own eyeful of a band bigger than the crowd but hard to see from here. They sound silky, the beats streaming past like cars on the freeway in the dark and all the brake lights like little coals. Not a note is wasted, the chords moving seamlessly forward like a machine. Every beat is computationally perfect, neither too early, nor too late, and we love that, that and the urgency and the confusion in their voices rising high above, raw, despairing. We can sing along to this. We'll be the flaws that make this music gorgeous. I strain to see a glimpse of the band, but i cannot see them, except on a screen. I suppose that is close enough in this age. We sing along, we know the songs by heart, we can all sing together that we've lost ourselves.