There’s a curious power to good music, one that compels fans to pay thirty bucks for the privilege of standing outside Higher Ground in the rain to see it played live. We were soaked, we were cold, we were crowding under two umbrellas, and we were extremely enthusiastic about it. This was State Radio. This was going to be worth it.

I struck up a conversation with the girl in line behind us, Emily, who was shivering in the wind and clutching a soaked sweatshirt over her head. She turned out to be from New Jersey; of all places; she follows State Radio around on tour and goes to all their east coast gigs. She and her brother had driven five hours to get here. This was the eighteenth concert she’d attended in the past year. “How many times have you seen them?” she asked.

“Err. This would be the first.”

By the expression on her face, she was considering murdering me and using my body to hold her place in line while she ran from the cops.

Thanks to Eric Marshall and his superhuman willingness to stand in line for two hours, us MMU folks were at the front of the line. Behind us stretched a long snake of waiting fans; beside us, a random group of people had set up a makeshift shelter of trash bags and were singing cheerfully. There was an air of festivity to the whole thing, of not so much waiting as socializing, of having fun; a tangible sense of this is gonna be great.

Then the doors opened and we, shaking water from our hair, rushed inside.

The opening band was Sidecar Radio, and they, like opening acts everywhere, knew their audience wasn’t here to see them. They had a good time anyway. After a clumsy start (“Oh, f---, it’s noise rock,” a friend muttered) they showed practiced ability with their instruments—especially the bassist—and were, though overwhelmingly loud up close, worth hearing. Some people were even dancing at the end of the set, or at least flailing rhythmically.

Then State Radio came onstage, wearing Viking helmets and looking immensely proud of it, and the crowd cheered as they began their first song, and I remember thinking, yeah, this is worth waiting outside in the rain. Emily’s group from New Jersey was front and center and they seemed to know all the lyrics; they were singing along and punching the air with the beat, clapping, jumping, screaming and cheering at the end of each song. Their enthusiasm was infectious. It spread through the room, gradually dissipating at the edges where the twenty-somethings stood and bobbed their heads minutely, acting cool.

I genuinely liked the band. Sure, I liked the music—I’d listened to it before, though less than I was willing to admit—but these three guys on stage were quite obviously having a great time. During a drum solo, Chad Urmston, the guitarist, and Chuck Fay, the bassist, charged Viking-helmet-first at each other and locked horns, grinning. Chad Urmston announced that in honor of Halloween he would insert the word “pumpkin” into a The Diner Song, and then, after a moment’s thought, informed us exactly where it would be.

They got crayons on the placemats,
refried beans.
Don’t give me half-and-half
just whip up my PUMPKIN!

At one point we all started clapping along with the drums and the beat got faster and faster and faster, clap-clap-clap-clap-clap and I thought it would stop and turn into a chord and a chorus and the end of the song but it kept going, clap-clap-clap-clapclapclapclapclap with the tension building until our bodies were stretched and bowed with it and I couldn’t stop, there was no way I could stop clapclapclapclapclap and CHORD and the guitar picks up the melody and we sag with relief back into reality. My hands were numb from the clapping. I’d forgotten how much power live music can have.

We called them back for two encores. By then my ears were shot. Any noise quieter than the sound from the amps was far-off and distorted, and, to my music-addled brain, irrelevant. I pushed my way through the departing crowd and out the doors. The outside world seemed oddly sharp, clear and cold and muted. Fans chattered and joked in the parking lot with their free tour edition CDs in their hands. Smokers tried to light up, cupping their lighters against the wind. People seemed both dazed and energized, their coasts draped over their arms and their faces flushed, grinning, and the word I picked up most often through the ringing in my ears was Epic.