Last night, an astounding tragedy occurred, as a pair of blasts rang out immediately following American pop starlet Ariana Grande’s show to an audience primarily composed of young people and their parents at the Manchester Arena in the United Kingdom. In the whirlwind of a day that has followed last night’s attack, ISIL has come forward to claim responsibility for the bombing. Twenty-two music fans lost their lives during the terrorist attack (including an eight-year-old girl) and over fifty more were injured, shaking the global community to its core. Times like these are difficult to process or understand. The nature of such senseless violence, particularly when it’s perpetrated against children and teens, is heartbreaking on a scale that is hard to verbalize.
There are two things, however obvious, that unite Live For Live Music’s readership: (1) we are humans sharing time on this planet, and (2) we love, seek out, and find solace in music. What happened in Manchester on Monday was an assault on both of these core shared traits and an immeasurable tragedy for all of us. As human beings sharing our brief time on the Earth with one another, it’s heartwrenching and incensing to see innocent people lose their lives. These feelings are only compounded when recognizing that the attack on Monday intentionally targeted Grande’s particular demographic of fans—young people, mostly girls, with full and vibrant lives ahead of them, who have not been in this world long enough to be held responsible for the international politics of today. Ultimately though, this tragedy should not be viewed through the lens of a specific performer or their fan group. This attack was not just perpetrated against attendees of an Ariana Grande concert. It was also an assault on the institution of live music as a whole.
As music lovers, we collectively find respite from the daily grind of life with the tunes we listen to and at the shows we frequent. Say what you want about the terminology, but concerts are a safe space for us. The live music setting is one that is sacred to many—a place where we can go to let go, to catch a break from our real lives, even if it’s just for a few hours. Music brings us together. It always has. The tradition of community through music was well-established for years and years before us or our grandparents or their grandparents were on this planet. It’s a basic human urge to gather together, dance, and celebrate with sound. Incidents like the one that happened at Ariana Grande’s show in Manchester, at the nightclub in Orlando, and at the Bataclan in Paris violate and defile what should be jubilant nights for our kindred music-loving brethren.
It should not take an excess amount of empathy to recognize that what happened in Manchester could happen to any of us, to members of our close-knit community, to our sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, or friends. The possibility of mindless acts of terror, domestic or foreign, has become a part of our daily lives. The awareness of this risk casts shadows on our routine actions and follows us throughout the day, rooting itself, however subconsciously, in the back of our thoughts. This is one of the goals of terrorist attacks—to cause monstrous grief, fear, and uncertainty among the population. In these times, perhaps now more than ever, we must come together as fellow humans and as fellow music lovers to comfort each other and to lift one another up. Tell the people close to you that you love them. Tell the people you’re not close to that you love them. Forge and strengthen bonds, and relish these connections.
Be safe and take precautions, but at the end of the day, such horrifying acts cannot be allowed to paralyze us from living nor from finding the joy we find in music and one another. Our hearts are with all of you and with the victims of Monday night’s attack.
[Photo: LA Times/Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images]