Blind Faith at a Floater Show

I travel an hour and a half without a ticket, praying that there will be at least one left at the door because my friend, Chris, calls me, demanding, "You're going with me to the Floater show because I had a dream that we were in front and I was dancing and I kept looking back at you and smiling so big!" So, we do.

To my good fortune, there is a ticket at the door and only $5 extra for the door fee.While waiting, we shimmy our way through the crowd and secure our place on the front line shivering with excitement because we both know that a Floater show is better than sex. But first, we have to suffer through the opening act, Tallboy, who I've seen several times since and have come to like.

We have to elbow a little to keep our place as the crowd fills in. Not in the front row, but on the front line. That's the second row where you have to reach over the person in front of you, hold onto the rail, brace yourself and keep the crowd from smashing you into the front row and them into the rail. Which is hard to do because the Moshing F-tards are huge dudes in the 5th row back and when they fall, they fall hard, and we're like dominoes. So we hold on tight, my girl, Chris, myself, and the 6foot 250lb man superstoked about all the "bouncing boobs" wearing a t-shirt that says, "Dip me in beer and throw me to the drunk chicks." We are the front line, the crowd control by proxy.

We grab the blind dude out of the mosh-pit, where he was getting clobbered, and put him in the front row where we hover over him and keep him un-smashed. I sneak a peak at his face, when I can, and see bliss, the same bliss that I feel. What a twisted blessing, to be able to enjoy the music fully, without being distracted by visuals. I want that. I want to close my eyes and float away with the music but I'm captivated by Wynia's mouth; it seems to melt into sound and I'm not trippin', that's just what a live Floater show does, it melts.

Wynia commands subtlety. He sings with his eyes closed and his soul open. He's not only in-love with the music, he is the music. That's Duende rising. When the spirit rises through you, conjured by the music, ajoining to your soul--your whole life is now and the music is your only existence. Floater fans are intensely loyal because they share the rise, they conjure Duende for the whole crowd. Like I said, it's better than sex.


At one point, the crowd was so tight and fervent, I couldn't keep my feet on the ground. I was being lifted by the jumping people squeezing around me. It was fucking brilliant.

There's truth in that 'lost in fidelity' rumor. You have to have been at a Floater show to enjoy their albums because listening is remembering, its getting lost in and rising again with the music. Scratch that. As the music.

We drive home on top of the world. We got to see Floater live. We did a good deed. And it fucking rocked.