CHICAGO—Exclaiming and pushing past each other as they jockeyed for a clear view of the screen, friends of local man Carl Michaels excitedly gathered around his phone Monday to watch the shaky footage he had recorded of a recent Mt. Joy concert. “Whoa, the audio is so distorted that you can barely even make out what song they’re playing—this fucking rocks,” said friend Brett Osnos of the blurry seven-second video, stressing how cool it was to hear a tinny, near-unlistenable stretch of the song’s bridge that was punctuated by a drunk woman screaming in the background. “That one part is killer where the light show gets so bright that the image turns completely pixelated and blown out. And it’s so sweet how you can barely see the band on the stage because most of the picture is taken up by a bunch of heads and people holding up their phones. Seriously, you’re a fucking god for scoring this.” At press time, numerous friends were frantically offering to pay Michaels upwards of $100 for the privilege of acquiring the “completely legendary footage” for their own phones.

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