The lights dim and the band begins to pack the stage, complete with two sperate sets of drums. Even if I’d gone into Osees with absolutely no knowledge of the band, now is the time when I’d have known something was up with these guys. Some guy in the crowd yells that John Dwyer’s shorts should be shorter, a guy next to me starts absolutely losing his shit, and I begin to recognize faces. This crowd was so much larger than I was used to, but it still felt familiar. In the company of a barkeep, a friend, my favorite bookstore’s owner, and a super nice stranger, I felt invincible.

The actual show was incredible. The acoustics at The Englert are very round and deep, causing the raucous noise of the Osees performance to shake every object and occupy every empty space in the room. The performance was god knows how long, but it felt like an eternity in mere minutes. The songs were effortlessly strung together, and I got lost in the music, the trance only breaking during soundchecks. At some point the push of the crowd behind me got too tempting, and I stepped inside. The show culminated in an absolutely scorching performance of “The Static God“, my personal favorite Osees song. I screamed my lungs out and hopped like a fucking maniac. Nothing else would have been fitting. The show comes to an end, and I begin to catch my breath.

Walking away from the stage takes the form of stumbling, and I can barely feel my feet. I’m overheating as is, and I would have been absolutely toasted had I worn my extra layer. I step out the doors of The Englert and into a world of drunken frat guys and irregular traffic, only to step back inside a second later. In the daze of it all, I’d forgotten my jacket.

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