Emile Mosseri: When I was 17, my brother and I went to a concert at Giants Stadium called “Field Day.” It was a festival that was supposed to be held over two days in a field somewhere in Long Island but they lost their permit and moved it to Giants Stadium for a one-day bonanza. The lineup was totally nuts — it was Elliott Smith, Spiritualized, Blur, Beastie Boys, and Radiohead as the headliner. There were other bands, but those were the ones I was obsessed with. I was supposed to sing in a choir concert that night but quit the group so I could go to this festival with my brother. I remember feeling really cool for making that decision and bragging about it to anyone who would listen for months leading up to the show.
At the show, it rained buckets all day long and we were all in these clear ponchos and wet socks, and the whole thing and the bands were all incredible. Beck slipped on the way to the stage, so he had to cancel his set. This was Sea Change-era Beck where he had The Flaming Lips as his backing band, so my brother and I were severely bummed. I remember feeling angry and entitled more than concerned for his well-being. I chalk it up to being a 17-year-old piece of shit. My girlfriend had just dumped me and was listening to Sea Change constantly and deeply wallowing in teen angst and heartbreak, so it was a hard pill to swallow.
Beastie Boys were unreal and when Radiohead came out, the sky cleared up and they played for about four hours. It was in that pocket of time after Hail to the Thief had leaked but before it had come out, so everyone knew the songs. I most clearly remember them playing “Myxomatosis,” I think it was the most badass thing I’d witnessed, and I was overwhelmed and wept a little.
There’s something that happens to your brain when you’re a teenager hearing live music, it’s a feeling that’s hard to fully get back to. You’re impressionable and not competitive or jaded yet, and you can truly surrender to your excitement and not worry about how you come across. When you combine that with seeing some of the best artists in the world all in one day, it kind of became the undisputed champion of live music experiences for me. Also, I was obsessed with “How to Disappear Completely” and had no expectation of hearing them play it. They played it as their fourth and final encore, it was the last tune of a night of 1000 tunes. It hit me in this teenage way, like they played it just for me, it felt like magic.
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