As I walked up the stairs towards my seat, the crowd at A Day to Remember’s concert began to make me nervous. Many were long time fans, now adults, with face piercings and tattoos. One person dashed by me in a banana suit, almost knocking me over. I got hit in the face by the hair of one head-banging girl. Yet as I found my seat and began to enjoy the music, I no longer felt like an outsider. The unique energy of the crowd drew me in and instead of separate people at a concert, we truly were one audience.

In the middle of the show Jeremy McKinnon, the lead singer of ADTR, stopped to say, “Dallas is the best audience we’ve had all tour.” He interacted with the crowd, at one point telling everyone to swing our t-shirts around and, during a slower song, sway with our phone lights in the air. All Time Low, the first opening band, did something similar when they stopped singing and allowed the audience to continue the chorus. While singing Time Bomb, they even allowed two guys to go on stage and sing with them. One girl seemed to take this as an invitation, because she somehow snuck past security, climbed on stage, and hugged guitarist Jack Barakat so hard that they both fell into the crowd. In true performer spirit, he simply climbed back on and continued playing.

Everyone who has been to a rock concert has seen the head-banging, jumping and other high-energy stunts the band pulls as they play. One attempted flip by Pierce the Veil’s guitarist, however, fell short. He ran across the stage and began to roll – but ended up on his backside instead of his feet. It looked bad, but his fingers never left the strings, and it ended up more comedic than song-ruining. A more successful example was when ADTR blew up a giant inflatable globe and crowd surfed in it. McKinnon didn’t seem to enjoy it, however, and got back onstage as soon as he could break free of the audience.

Although many actions by the band were predictable for a rock concert, a few left me confused. At one point, Santa Claus came out to shoot t-shirts into the crowd. I am still unclear as to why Santa and his elf were onstage during an end-of-summer concert. Then they decided, for their finale, to have the audience TP the entire stadium. Throughout the concert, bottles, balls and people were thrown, but in a small scale. However, for this act, they seemed to have bought the nearest grocery store out of all their toilet paper. Seeing the mess as I fought my way to the door, I felt pity for the people who had to clean it up.

Due to the wide availability of technology, recording the experience has become normal for concerts. At any point, hundreds of lights came from the audience as they used their phones to take pictures and videos. However, I overheard one woman being scolded by the police for videotaping the concert. She had her camera confiscated and was escorted out. One security personnel said it was because she had a nice camera. They don’t enforce the no-videoing rule for cell phones because the picture doesn’t turn out as well. Her situation seemed monstrously unfair, especially after I came back inside to see the woman next to me using her nice, professional-looking camera with no retaliation.

At least in my case, I had the most enjoyable experience possible. I wasn’t one of the people who knew every word to every song, but I danced with them like we were the same. The high energy both brought my spirits up and wore me out. After the half-hour drive home, I fell asleep immediately, content to dream about flashing lights and loud noises.