Why your favorite artist might be secretly trying to kill you.
By: Sara Bolanos
I went to my first concert when I was 12 years old. When The Jonas Brother ascended from their hidden door underneath the stage my heart nearly stopped. I didn’t even have a real seat, just a blanket on the lawn. It was July 29th 2009, and I grabbed my friends hand so hard she was screaming at me to let go. Every thought I had, every worry that clouded my mind was instantly erased when the music to S.O.S or whatever Jonas Brother song they opened with hit the first note.
Thus began my not so slow decent into a concert obsession. In my high school life I went to over 20 concerts in three years, all of which took place in D.C. or another major city such as Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. My friends and I were always given a set of rules to follow. Always travel in pairs. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t take drinks from strangers. Don’t drink and drive. In fact just be careful of the drunk drivers when coming home from a concert. In spite all the warnings, I never felt unsafe at a concert. It was a place of refuge. I always felt at home. I guess music had the ability to do that to people, bring them together that is.
But in recent years all of that has changed. I was studying in Wales the time of the Manchester attacks. My friend came up to me crying, she had been trying to get in touch with her friend all night, her friend was supposed to be at the concert and wasn’t replying to her. She ended up being fine, but it was still scary. What our parents never thought about warning us about was what to do if there was a terrorist attack at a concert. Five months later I forgot to put my phone on silent as I went to sleep. I was awoken to non-stop dinging. The updates kept coming in, 20 dead, 25 dead, unknown number dead at a Las Vegas concert. Tthere was a sinking feeling in my gut that it wouldn’t be the last time I heard about an attack at a concert.
I was planning on going to an ‘The All-American Rejects’ concert in a few weeks. I wondered how I would feel, being back at concerts after all these attacks and knowing what has happened in the past few months.
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Dear friend of mine and Longwood Student Isabela Naccarato was in D.C. at the Harry Styles concert the same night as Las Vegas. I remeber recalling that she was at a concert and before I knew where the shooting had happened I had called her at least a dozen times to make sure she was OK. Upon leaving she heard the news from her mom who had called her after hearing that there was a shooting at a concert.
“I kept thinking about if anything about the harry concert was different, if anyone was acting strange or if anything didn’t seem right,” Naccarato said. “Something like this can happen anywhere to anyone, but the fact that i was at a concert at the same time something so terrible was happening across the country really puts things into perspective. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it you can only be aware of your surroundings.”
Shas been to over 50 concerts and never thought that her place of safety would become a hot spot for terrorists’ attacks. “I’m definitely going to be more cautious considering everything that has happened recently,” Naccarto said. “Concerts are a place for happiness and to let go of any worries you may have. No one should be scared to see their favorite artist live.”
The chances of being killed in a terrorist related attack are 1 in 20 million, according to FBI data base. So while it’s not exactly irrational to fear concerts it is unlikely. In recent concerts have been an identified as a ‘soft target’ for terrorists. A soft target is an area that is relatively unprotected, and if you compare security at the White House to the security at a concert it does have less protection. However studies show that the aim of these attacks at concerts and similar events are made to do what their groups sound like—which is to instill terror.
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I went to the concern as planned. What first struck me was how different this venue was, but how safe I felt. What I noticed second was that there didn’t seem to be much more security at all. Perhaps it was because Richmond didn’t seem like a hot enough target to amp up safety measures. There was an eclectic mix of what seemed to be young adults reliving their angsty adolescence. Despite what had happened less than a month ago, they didn’t seem nervous either. The lights dimmed and that familiar feeling in my chest from 9 years ago began to rise. The energy of crowd started to get excited and with the first note of the band, every worry was washed away with the music.