Music and Letting Go: Samsara's First Show

Getting my drum set dialed in was always a chore. The adjustments alone ate up more time than I ever wanted them to. That night I would have to assemble the whole thing on a stage, and fast, which I kept turning over in my head as I lugged the bass drum up the basement steps and out to the car. Playing in front of people wasn't new. I'd spent years at the piano and done a handful of school talent shows as a kid. But this was my first time behind the drums in front of a live audience, and that alone had my stomach in knots.

Adam, my brother and the band's rhythm guitarist, stood waiting by the open back of his small dark red SUV. "This is everything. I think we're ready," I told him as we eased the drum inside. "Heard. Your bag's up in the front seat." "Heard." We'd both worked kitchens for years, and that was a word we carried out of them. Heard. A cool, offhand way to say you understood.

We'd taken the set apart and stacked it into the car in a deliberate order so that unloading would go quicker. Adam and I rode together while Ryan and Jordan, our other two bandmates, drove separately. My brother and I had been playing and writing together for more than four years. We'd cycled through several guitarists and bassists before Ryan turned up about two years back. Jordan, on bass, joined maybe six months after that. We had a few covers worked out, the kind that go over well with any room, but what we really cared about was our own material.

The thirty minute drive felt like it lasted five, and then we were parked in front of a small punk bar in Old Town Fort Collins called Surfside 7, the place where we were about to play our first show.

Surfside sat on College Avenue, the main drag through Fort Collins, which usually meant no parking anywhere near the door. "Would you look at that. Three empty spots, just for us," Adam said. The second we climbed out I lit a cigarette to settle myself while Adam went in to check us in. It was a mild August night, warm enough that shorts and a t-shirt felt right, which suited me fine since I knew I'd be sweating on stage soon enough. Someone had set a little sign by the entrance: "Free Metal Show Tonight: Samsara." Samsara was us, our heavy metal band. I hadn't expected a sign at all, and it struck me that it might pull a few strangers in off the sidewalk.

I was halfway through the smoke when Ryan rolled up in his forest green Jeep, the amps packed tidy in the back. He stepped out grinning. "You ready? This is gonna be epic." Before I could answer, Adam came back out and said we were clear to start loading in. I handed off what was left of my cigarette and went inside to size up the stage.

The smell of beer hit me as soon as I walked in. Calling the stage small would be generous. It was crammed into a corner with barely enough room for our gear. "Who cares," I told myself. "At least you've got a gig." I went to the bar to order a pitcher for us to split, and the bartender moved like he had all night. Ten minutes for a pitcher of PBR. While I waited I watched the regulars. Denim jackets and flannel everywhere, a couple of mohawks tucked into the corner booth by the window. Past the crowd of tattoos and piercings and dyed hair, I spotted Adam and Ryan coming in with Jordan behind them. Out of the forty or so people in the room, it hit me as funny that the band looked the most ordinary of anyone there.

I carried the pitcher and glasses over to a table and we got to work on it fast, hoping the beer would keep our nerves in check. "What do you need me to grab, Aaron?" Jordan asked between swallows. "I'll handle the drums, but I'll need a hand with the cymbals, stands, and pedals. Set your own stuff up first and we'll see where I'm at," I said.

Once the pitcher was gone we started hauling gear up. I'd be set up behind their amps, since drums carry the furthest on their own. With the stage wedged into the corner by the front windows, my back would nearly be against the glass. The bass drum went in first, since everything else gets built around it. Then came the toms, which were always a little fussy to position, and doing it in a dim room full of strangers watching made it feel hopeless. "At least you loaded them in the right order," said the voice I hear my thoughts in. I got them close enough and stepped back out to the street.

People were drifting up and down College, hopping from one bar to the next, and I noticed for the first time how clear the sky was. I hoped some of them would wander our way. I tucked all three cymbals under my right arm like a stack of books and carried a stand in my left. Jordan came behind me with my other two stands. The instant my foot hit the stage the middle cymbal slid, which knocked the others loose, and the whole stack dropped out of my arm in what felt like slow motion. They hit the floor with a crash that spun every head in the place toward me. The crowd's stares landed on me like something sharp while I scrambled to collect the cymbals and whatever composure I had left. "Great first impression, Lynch," was the first thing I said to myself, and far from the last cruel one. Adam just looked over and smiled, then left his amp to help me finish the kit.

My head wouldn't stop. What if they hate us. What if Adam or Ryan snaps a string. What if I blank on a part. The voice would not quiet down. I scanned the set list one more time as if staring at it could help. Then Adam leaned into the mic. "What's up, Surfside?! We are Samsara and we're gonna melt your fuckin' faces!" For a second his voice sounded strange and distant, like it was coming through water, and I realized it was buried under the pounding of my own heart. I pulled in a deep breath and felt the rhythm ease. I counted the band in, and then the music was just there. The thing I'd leaned on my whole life hadn't left me. My hands knew exactly what to do, and the nerves vanished in a single beat. The room was with us, and the night was already turning into a good one. I couldn't help but smile.

-Aaron Lynch