The Most Devastating Thing to Ever Happen

Last week I trekked to Penn State University for their annual spring concert, which, in very cool fashion, is open to the public. The festival featured Big Gigantic (my favorites) and Passion Pit, among others. We had great weather, a nice hotel with an indoor pool, and the chance to pretend like we were back in college again. It was an excellent vacation.

I learned about the show through a Penn State student that I met while seeing Big G in Philadelphia on my birthday (the Big G family is the best, after all!). We had both heard through the social media grapevine that the boys were playing small house parties after their bigger college shows, and we were determined to find the PSU afterparty because really, is there anything better than the thought of seeing one of your favorite bands in a shitty college apartment? Absolutely not.

The festival was great, and Big G’s 1 hour set was more than worth the trip from New York. My PSU friend and I parted ways because he didn’t want to stay for Passion Pit (bad choice!), but we agreed to meet up later on. When the show was over I texted him to see what was going on, but he never responded and so my friends and I took our exhausted selves to our hotel to crash, not all that sad about ending the day before midnight.

The next morning I found out, yet again through social media, that while there hadn’t been a full-fledged Big Gigantic afterparty, Dom – the producer and saxophonist – did do a DJ set at someone’s apartment. I was sad that I hadn’t known about it.

Then I started hearing back from my friend, who had lost his phone at some point in the night and wasn’t able to text me and tell me where he was. And where he was, as it turns out, was at the afterparty. With not that many people. With Dom DJing and hanging out and drinking crappy college beer with Penn State undergrads. I could have been there.

I COULD HAVE BEEN THERE.

But instead I have to suffice by looking at pictures of Dom with my friend, chillin like besties. My slightly bummed out mood went to completely depressed and it took a few hours for me to truly snap out of it. This party would have been, as they say, epic. And I missed it all because of a lost iPhone (which was later found).

Tragic.