A Leap of Faith: "Sometime Around Midnight" by Airborne Toxic Event (Song # 11/ 366 - September 1, 2015)

One of the more consistent bands to emerge from the last five years are the Airborne Toxic Event. They're a wildly impressive live outfit who in 2012 I saw tear down the walls of the Metro in Chicago with a high energy and blistering set that echoes the spirit of the Clash. I've followed them religiously ever since, but it was a performance at 2014's Lollapalooza that proved to me they aren;t going anywhere soon. In the midst of a sun shower which only strengthened as their set went on, "Sometime Around Midnight" coalesced into a prayer for the lonely, heartbroken and confused. 

A great song doesn't just move you; it leaves deep cuts that can't be sewn back together. It flows inside your blood where when you hear it, you don't listen to it, but become a part of the song. Voices shudder as they screech "You just have to see her" five times in a row while the band roars, the crowd wails and everyone voices break as they share a piece of their soul as the lyrics to "Sometime Around Midnight" escape from their lips. It's a transcendent moment in terms of performance from the Airborne Toxic Event, but it's an exorcism for the audience. This is a song that the sold-out crowd relates to; it's one that defines them. We've all pined for a lost love and when our paths unexpectedly cross, it sends out world into a whirlwind and to have someone craft these emotions so perfectly is something we can grasp and hold onto and the Airborne Toxic Event has mastered the craft of heartache and melancholy in song.

This is the single greatest song of the last century without a chorus and was the single paramount song performance of Lollapalooza's three days in 2014. As blades of rain fell, a ray of light shone down on the crowd in between the towers of downtown Chicago signaling something magnificent was about to occur. Fans began to relinquish their umbrellas, hats and poncho's and took the advice of Glen Hansard from earlier in the day and simply embraced the rain. With each passing lyric the concentration of the crowd ripened into a dizzying fury where band and fan played off one another in a spiraling squall of emotions boiling over, bodies leaping for the sky, hearts being baptized by the rain, ache dissipates, hope surges, the bass rolls, the drums step up, the guitars wail, the violin accentuates and Mikel Jollett's vocals heightens to colors undefined highlighting one of the great emotional purges in the history of music. Before Lollapalooza the Airborne Toxic Event were a damn fine band, but after Lollapalooza, I'll go on record and say they are a great one.

Go to the 37:00 to see the rain drenched performance of "Sometime Around Midnight":