Photo credit to Brandon Smith for the featured image.

I saw the best concert of my life on Sunday night. Also, I saw the first concert of my life on Sunday night. At this point, you may be asking: how in the world has somebody who owns every Taylor Swift album and named his cat after Ariana Grande never seen actual live music before now? The answer: I’m an introvert, so the idea of enduring hearing loss in exchange for the privilege of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers for three hours in a dark room never appealed to me. Until I saw that Echosmith’s Inside a Dream tour planned a stop in my hometown.

If you listened to pop radio around 2014, you no doubt heard “Cool Kids,” the Los-Angeles-based sibling band’s triple-platinum hit. If there were a hall of fame for introvert anthems, “Cool Kids” would be the star exhibit. Its anguishing hooks perfectly encapsulate the stages of discomfort, confusion, and occasional despair of growing up introverted in an extroverted world. “I wish that I could be like the cool kids,” the chorus repeats, a sentiment every introvert can relate to.

Yet within the song lies an underlying hopefulness that, eventually, life will improve. While during adolescence and early adulthood we introverts envy the extroverted “cool kids,” they carry their own insecurities in the same way that we do. Once we realize that introversion and extroversion are mere personality traits that don’t make anyone inherently better or worse than one another, we introverts are able to embrace ourselves. To get to that point of self-acceptance requires some rewiring, however. We need songs like “Cool Kids” to let us know that we’re normal, just like everyone else.

So, like any normal person, I bought tickets to my favorite band’s show. The reward of seeing Echosmith live outweighed the potential discomfort of attending a concert. So I took a leap of faith into the scary world of blinding strobe lights and deafening drum solos. When the fateful night arrived this past Sunday, I threw on my Echosmith hoodie, stepped out into the cold night, and hoped for the best.

My debut concert started inauspiciously. Immediately upon entering the venue, I realized that I needed to walk through a bar to reach the actual concert hall. Yuck. I could practically feel the stench of alcohol on me as I waded through my worst nightmare. When I safely reached shore one eternity later, I exhaled an enormous sigh of relief. Well, actually, I inhaled first, because I’d been inadvertently holding my breath the whole time.

Then, I spotted it. With everyone else’s eyeballs glued to Jena Rose’s party-starting opening act, the holy grail appeared before me. It radiated a golden aura unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I began a slow jaunt towards it, shifting my gaze to the left and right to ensure that nobody could beat me to it. This must be a mirage, I told myself. Nothing so pure could ever exist. It’s against all laws of nature. As I moved closer, though, I realized that my eyes did not deceive me. In the back-right corner of the venue there indeed sat a single bar stool beckoning to me.

Settling into that seat was like walking through the pearly gates. I leaned against the adjacent wall with my arm resting on its floating ledge, as comfortable as I’d be had I stuck to my usual Sunday night routine of cozying up in bed with a sci-fi novel at 8pm. Even better, the next-closest stool lied a good three feet away, my view of the stage was completely unobstructed, and there were no seats behind me, so I could awkwardly bob my head to the music free of any self-consciousness. I was home.

After the second opener, The Score, finished their pleasantly non-relaxing pop-rock setlist, the lights turned on as we waited for the headliners to take the stage. To pass the time, I turned to my favorite hobby: people-watching. An old couple in front of me and to the left was downing Pepsi like there was no tomorrow. A group of millennial women sat in a circle laughing to their right. Way up front by the stage stood a conglomeration of teens ready to dance the night away. From what I could discern, everyone I saw came to the show with somebody else. None of them had a seat as good as mine, yet they all seemed equally happy as me to be in the building.

When the time for the feature presentation arrived, the room turned pitch black. Following a short bout of silence, the bass began to blare out and the stage lights pulsated a surreal mix of warm and cool colors. By the time the lights had brightened enough to reveal the band members, the music had kicked into high gear. Echosmith was throwing heat. Noah twirled around in circles with his trusty bass, Graham hammered away at the drums in the back, and Sydney jumped around stage imploring the fans to join her. Soon enough, the chorus to the lead song hits its climax. “It hurts to be 18!” Sydney belted. “Stuck in the in-between.”

I nodded my head along with the beats, as if to say, “Yep.” When I was 18, graduating high school bought me a brief reprieve from an introvert’s hell, only to discover the even worse horrors of college three months later. I still get flashbacks to the barrage of flyers for freshman mixers, dorm parties, and study groups. “Am I the only one here who wants to sit in their room and play Grand Theft Auto?”, I’d wonder. Indeed, 18 sucked. Thankfully, 18 was temporary. With Noah, Sydney, and Graham rocking away 50 feet in front of me, I soaked in the cheery song, glad to have survived life’s most awkward phase. (It also helps that the song is fantastic.)

Only a few minutes later, though, I yawned. I almost slapped myself for doing so. The combination of pretty lights and splendid music was mesmerizing and, even worse, the show had just begun. How could I already be tired? Then I remembered how my neighbors blasted out the Red Hot Chili Peppers to the whole apartment building late into the prior night. Clearly they enjoy a raucous party; I don’t.

As my mind began to wander to the frat bros next door, “Come Together” hurried to my rescue. “Who are they with their so-called innovations? … ” Sydney sang. “… They shy away from the slightest alteration.” While my loathing of any social gathering of greater than six people puts me out of the mainstream, I’m glad I’m not a stereotypical dude-bro who leaves beer bottles in the stairwell after something called “pre-gaming.” Obviously, not all extroverts act like those guys — not even close. To all the responsible extroverts out there who enjoys partying safely and considerately: keep doing you. Nevertheless, “Come Together” reminded me of how conducive introversion can be to self-expression and individuality. By the time the song wrapped up with an extended drum/guitar duet, I felt rejuvenated.

Even the so-called “filler” moments grabbed my attention. At one point between songs, Sydney asked the crowd, “Who here came with somebody they love?” Once the mass of raised hands in the room lowered, she followed up with, “Who here came by themselves?” A few hands here and there shot up, including mine in the back. Sydney responded with something along the lines of, “Shout out to you guys!” To hear the lead singer to my favorite band openly welcoming lone wolves like me gave my heart a joyous little flutter.

Too bad not everyone shares her sentiment. We live in a society that’s so hyperfocused on socialization that it’s apparently weird to go to a concert without another human by your side. That stupid norm can keep introverts, who are more likely to prefer going out by themselves, from living their best lives. Extroverts rarely need to ask society for permission to hang out in public. If they want to go to a baseball game, a concert, a movie, a party, or wherever, they only have to hit up group chat, grab a few friends, and head out. For introverts, who build our energy with “me time,” every public outing requires Googling “Is it okay to [blank] alone” along with a pep talk to the bathroom mirror. If you think about it, a Sunday night concert should be the perfect space to slip in solo, get lost in the music, and gear up for the week. Echosmith provided a space for exactly that.

The band followed the impromptu Q&A with a soft rendition of “Tell Her You Love Her.” On one hand, it’s a straightforward expression of romantic love, which, need I remind you, both extroverts and introverts experience to the fullest (sometimes, gasp, even with each other!). It’s also, from another point of view, a directive to love oneself. The song’s poetic “her” could be the self’s reflection, with the songs lyrics prompting the poetic “you” recognize her inherent beauty, quirks, and passions.

For introverts, maintaining a healthy level of self-esteem is a battle. That’s not to say that extroverts aren’t prone to self-loathing too, it’s just a problem that can hit introverts a bit harder sometimes. Extroverts never are made to feel inferior specifically due to their extroversion. Their extroverted nature never hurt their chances at a job interview or invited bullying for reading alone in the classroom during lunch. For some of us introverts there will always be a lingering voice in our head telling us about how our introversion makes us intrinsically flawed.

At least we can try to fight it with self-care. As the band handed out roses to the patrons up front, I vowed to buy myself some flowers on my next trip to the grocery store. Why not reward myself for being me? When the song faded out amidst purple heart-shaped spotlights, I realized I could answer “yes” to both of Sydney’s earlier questions. I was both at the concert by myself and with someone I love.

“Tell Her You Love Her” kicked off a string of dialed-back numbers. Next up was “Bright,” the band’s other major radio hit and my personal favorite song of theirs. I still remember exactly where I was when I first heard it: at a stop sign at the intersection of Hitt St. and University Ave. Experiencing the live version of a song I’ve sung hundreds of times on my commute to work the last few years was a near out-of-body experience. It was definitely special too for the bride- and groom-to-be who slow-danced to their upcoming wedding song on stage, but I like to believe I made just as lasting a memory watching from my favorite bar stool in back. And finally, Sydney stood alone under the white spotlight to perform “Terminal” off the band’s acoustic EP. In the same way that quiet “me time” recharges my batteries in preparation for life’s constant challenges, this stripped-down middle segment of the concert helped the band gather strength for the back-nine of the setlist.

And they definitely delivered, racing to the finish line with a stream of hits both new and old, as well as a sweet cover of “When You Were Young” by The Killers. Of course, there’s no way this night would finish with anything other than Echosmith’s crown jewel. Before the final song, the lights turned off again while a few unwitting souls snuck out to beat the impending light traffic. Fans began to chant for what everyone knew was coming. When the stage lights returned, they brought with them a cloud of confetti, raucous cheers from the fans, and the song nobody could wait any longer to hear. Finally, time for “Cool Kids.”

The song ended up on introvert playlists everywhere for good reason, but introverts don’t have a monopoly on insecurity. Everyone, introverted or extroverted, at some point in their lives feels like an outcast. That’s why everyone at the concert, each coming from a wholly unique background, knew the lyrics to Echosmith’s most famous song. So it turned out quite fitting that the last words of the night were sang not by any of the band members but from the audience on its own. As I write this post nearly 72 hours later, I can still hear the beautiful amalgamation of voices ringing in my ears: “I wish that I could be like the cool kids. Like the cool kids.” Looking back, the whole night was an introvert’s dream. Though I came to the concert by myself, there wasn’t a single moment during which I felt alone.