Back to the stone age

Going through one of the least productive phases of my life over the last years (work not being done, books remaining unread, blog not updated) I am dedicating my time in more passive activities. No wonder then that finding myself in Razzmatazz last Saturday for a concert by the Queens of the Stone Age, I was already surrounded by an aura of anticipation for self-fulfillment.

I arrived at this famous Barcelona Club, dizzy and tired from the previous night's hungover, looked for a quiet spot at the back and waited for the set to start. Then, as the first notes of "Regular John" started floating in the air I had it. The perfect flashback.

I suddenly realized that the last time I had listened to this song live was a long time ago, in some distant stage in Agios Kosmas in Athens, during a summer festival. As I started calculating the exact time distance, based on memories of people standing next to me, albums just released and football championship titles I realized that it was back in July 1999, with the Queens having only one album and with me just about ready to become the modest chemist I remain to date. As the band carried on with "Avon", (being the second track of the first album, having just followed the first track of of the first album) I took some time off my headbanging -doomed to look ridiculous at my age as most of my friends would be so kind to verify- and drifted off in a trance of recollections covering these nine years.

First came the people. I remembered people there with me on that concert, whom I now occasionally only talk to on facebook, some that I knew back then but have lost completely now and some that I didn't know then but met in the coming years only to share distant, separate concert memories. It was a different place back then. Climate change simply meant a cool April following a warm March, my hometown Athens had not seen snow for decades -since then the airport has been shut down three times due to heavy snowfall-. Ronaldo was still a phenomenon and Zidane a rising star, Greek football was in a limbo unaware of the greatness of a European Cup to follow. Kosovo was still part of Serbia -perhaps slightly more aware of foreign-office-supported greatness to follow-, New Orleans was still in its place and so was Baghdad. The Taliban were the good guys. Saddam was just being a bit stubborn before assuming the role of the personification of evil. Some people had mobile phones, none had one with a camera. Pavarotti was still alive and so was Pinochet. People were worried about Y2K. Ground Zero was still World Trade Center. September 11th was still simply the birthday of my friend Giorgos.

Personally I was just into my early 20s, much less anxious than today, only a bit more ambitious, equally lazy and frustrated with women. My hair looked more or less the same -thank God-, I was still walking around in shorts and hiking boots, wearing T-shirts with band names on them (it was Blur and Radiohead back then, Tool and Radiohead today, some things have not changed a bit). I had just returned back home in Athens after four years of college, I still wanted to become a journalist, I had no idea what Bioinformatics was -and somehow I think neither did Bioinformatics itself-, I had never been to Barcelona, nor ever ridden a plane.

As the third song -I think it was "Do it again"- steered the crowd to rhythmical "heys" I was rudely awaken. This was 2008, two world cups and five Queens' albums later, with so many things in the middle between myself and the "stone age" I had been tripping back to.

But aside of all that, I was still headbanging at the same pace, like the old times, like that distant hot July afternoon in Athens, so pleased and so reassured, that at least some things don't change. And the song remains the same.