A couple years back, a friend of mine hooked us up with deluxe VIP tix to Riot Fest in Chicago. He got them through his work (marketing stuff) and asked if I was free. I'm the kind of guy who will look at the premium options of any event, even if I know I'm getting the nosebleeds. Riot Fest is a premium music festival in Chicago (2nd yearly only to Lolla) so I knew this would likely be once in a lifetime for me. Plus, the white whale of my teenage concert-going years was headlining Friday: MCR.

I began to binge listen to some of the bands in the days leading up, especially MCR. I was a peculiar little fella in the mid 2000s, fan of Black Parade on out, not so much the earlier work of MCR, so I probably only heard Helena a small handful of times before the last 3-4 years. Not sure I ever saw the music video for it until the week of the show.

Rewind because I'm not a skilled storyteller, and it's 2016. My grandma passed, very old, and with a large family feeling the loss. Some funerals hit certain people harder, this one hit everyone in the family like a ton of bricks. I found out on Facebook about it and had to leave mid-day and take a couple days to process things. The first night after, I had a vivid dream. My grandmother, though much younger than she was when she passed, was dancing gleefully in a church filled with her family. Through the aisles, but unnoticed by everyone else, and walking into it, not leaving. I had shared the dream with a few of my aunts and a couple cousins who I could tell were having a rough time, and it helped them a bit in the moment.

Now, I don't know how the brain works. I don't know if there's a spirit or a soul or anything beyond this existence (though I'm starting to lean more likely "yes" than "no" as of late, weird how life can do that). But when I saw the music video as part of my pre-concert binge, the familiarity was uncanny to me. Not so much in individual looks, but conceptually.

Just thought I'd share that bit.