Screaming like a Siren

... would be an apt description for pretty much everyone in the O2 that night. Young and old. Guy or girl. Happy or going through heartbreak, it was one of those occasions where music manages to transcend the petty differences that seem to keep us apart from one another and blends a group into a unified whole.

The kind of event that makes you go home staggering, yet elated, mumbling to yourself and anyone who will listen, "what a fucking night".

I don't take many photos and videos during concerts, as I feel it takes away from the experience. However, I promised @holoz0r I would. :)

It was my third time seeing Halestorm live, and somehow, they seem to get better and better with every performance. The first time was in a small club outside Bologna. Tiny. Intimate. Very nice, but a huge throw from the fucking O2 Arena in London. I've said it before, it's such a pleasure watching artists grow in such a way and mature.

Though I don't think it matters much - tiny venue or roomy arena - since Lzzy's magnetic presence can feel both spaces just as snuggly. Few artists are so gifted (from that first minute-long greeting scream, all the way to the encore), yet so humble at the same time. They brought with them the energy of "we've put on a show, but we're also just happy to hang out".

And I kept thinking to myself how important it is and how it hasn't always been here. A woman's ability to sing about stuff like sexual pleasure, loving other women, or perhaps most resonant of all, her dreams and doubts as an artist, to an entire arena.

I remind myself it hasn't always been the case. In fact, it's only very recently that women have carved out (more often than not, in blood) such a space for themselves. It's worth not taking for granted.

Knowing any one could take my place
Knowing I could give my life for something
And it might all be for nothing

As though anyone could take this phenomenal woman's place. But then again, that's always easiest seen from the outside. And every time I have the luck to see this woman on stage, I'm reminded that although making myself small and giving of me the unacceptable bits is an option, it's not the only option.

What a lucky thing, to live in an age and a generation that can be inspired and influenced by powerful, stellar, superb women like Lzzy Hale.

Alas, this is the only version I found online (well, not alas - again, they're a brilliant live band). I admit I hadn't paid much attention to this song before the show. With such a killer album, it was hard to give all the songs their due. But when Lzzy introduced it as a love song, I got curious and really sunk into the lyrics.

Run off a cliff
Pretend that it's flying
But deep down, I know I'm the only one trying
Sometimes, sometimes
Lovin' you feels like dying

I didn't get how it was a love song at first. But then, I did. Of course, when I learned she actually wrote the song from the perspective of her bandmates, about herself, it added another layer to the puzzle.

"You realise there are times when you’re hard to love."

And make no mistake, it's one of the hardest things you can realize. One of the trickiest to make your peace with. I think this is what good art does. It makes it slightly easier to come to terms with all the difficult, unlovable parts of yourself. There's a lot of music about love, but that's not really the hard bit. Not the happy, cheery, cute part of it anyway.

When Lzzy calls out where all the bitches are in the audience, you better believe it's got the entire arena screaming. Which is interesting because most women spend their entire lives trying hard not to be bitches. We're taught and reared to play nice. To be good girls. And there is out there a stylized, malformed concept of the bad girl and the bitch - it's usually to do with being a bit loose and wearing skimpy outfits. I've a feeling it wasn't women who came up with that version.

But you can embrace the bitch in you, and know it doesn't mean you're not a nice, good girl, either.

It’s also kind of a warning. There have always been certain people in my life trying to make me into something that I’m not. So, I’m saying, ‘You never saw this coming. You have nothing to do with this.’

I always took to heart Lemmy's words about looking predators and assholes in the fucking eye, and walking like you're a wolf, not some frightened sheep. And this has the same energy, but tailored specifically to women who, I think, (still) need to hear it most of all.

All in all, it was a fantastic fucking night, one that left me sore both from belting out every song and from headbanging the life out of myself. What luck to have been there.