In Dust We Trust

A couple weeks ago, while waiting for a coworker at a subway stop in downtown Madrid for a night of bar hopping and clubbing, Brendan Dunne lightly taps my shoulder and directs my attention to a poster crudely taped up at a bus stop. In commanding, bold letters it reads 'Chemical Brothers' with other useful text written directly under it. I neglected to read it. With a little internet research and a surplus of procrastination, I obtained the date of the event, the time, the place and most importantly two tickets (one for myself and the second for Adam Holbert) at 38.50 euros ($56.21 Dollars) a piece.

Sunday, December 2, 2007. Tonight, like most other weekend outings, starts with a bottle and a half of wine (45 euro cents each) in my stomach and likewise with Adam except for his choice, discount, alcoholic beverage was champagne cleverly disguised in a 2 liter fanta bottle. A sobering fifteen minute walk to the bus station, 35 minute bus ride, 25 minute subway ride (a man played a joyous tune on the accordion in the subway), and a 10 minute walk to the Madrid Arena, we arrived an hour after the start of the event. Perfect timing. A short ticket line and hundreds of people still shuffling slowly into the massive building to join up with the other thousands. The faint, distant, rhythmic, beating sound of the bass slowly growing as we reached the entrance. Security guards filed people into single lines to search for weapons however they just patted us on the chest and shoulder and directed us inside. Luckily I remembered not to wear my chest mounted, semi automatic, machine gun or my shoulder mounted anti aircraft guided missile turret. We fought our way through the dense crowed and settled on a fairly close spot just to the left of the stage and a couple rows of people back from the speakers. The opening DJ (whose name I can't recall) was winding down. Humans were still pouring into the already packed floor of this stadium. DJ something or other finished and the sound cut out so only a murmur of people talking could be heard. Five minutes must have passed.

One deafening roar from the ceiling high, tower of speakers silenced the crowed momentarily only to erupt when two figures ran out on stage. They appeared to be brothers... Chemical Brothers.

Anticipation could have been lethal. With the music twisting, distorting, and growing at an enchanted like slow pace, everyone knew what was coming and it was beautiful. The crowed was no longer composed of people. They were molecules of boiling water that bubbled and danced in the giant cooking pot that was the Madrid Arena. Finally, the Chemical Brothers could no longer suppress the electronic disease that would plague every individual to move whether they wanted to or not. The pot boiled over. All of this happened in less than half a minute. An Imax sized screen behind the Dust Brothers controlled us. It displayed for our entertainment high contrasted images of police officers line dancing, sparks that morphed into butterflies and then into graceful levitating humans and the clown. Oh yes... The clown. Bald, tooth decay, eyes that could sense fear and a grin that could scare blind children. He was loved by everyone. His caked white face flashed on the screen, disappeared, and then flashed back in a new location. He was summoned by each bass hit. The music fell to a background sound and we were alone with the clown. He spoke. His voice was thunderous, cracked, and slow to drive into us what he was saying.

"YOU ARE ALLLL MY CHILDREN"

"YOU ARE ALLLL MY CHILDREN"

"YOU ARE ALLLL MY CHILDREN"




..and we were.


The show ended Monday, December 3, 2007 at about 1:30 A.M. The music had faded, although the ringing in our ears was still very audible. The subway was absolutely packed. We were almost unconscious on the subway and when we looked around to make sure we had not missed our stop we realized our subway car was empty. It was freezing outside at night and the little energy we had left would have been put to better use shivering yet we decided to dance in the subway car.



We got back home at around 3:30 in the morning. I was a little late to work.. about 4 hours. Adam stayed home.