I’ve often said live music is my happy place. Turns out, there is a concept that explains this. Collective effervescence. It’s not just a turn of phrase. There’s something about being in a small, packed venue, shoulder to shoulder with a few hundred strangers, where the only thing that matters is the sound in the room and the feeling in your chest. In those moments, I’m not thinking about deadlines or bills or whatever’s buzzing on my phone. I’m in it. Fully. It’s one of the few places I consistently slip into a flow state, that sense of total presence and immersion where time disappears and joy takes over. Those strangers become friends, even if just for a few hours.

But it’s not just personal. What makes these moments powerful isn’t just how they make me feel—it’s how they transform everyone in the room. That’s where collective effervescence comes in.

Sociologist Émile Durkheim came up with the term to describe the surge of emotion people feel when they gather together with a shared purpose. He was talking about religious rituals, but anyone who’s been to a great live show knows the feeling. You can sense it the moment the band kicks into a song everyone knows. Voices rise. Bodies move. The energy spikes and suddenly, you’re not just watching. You are part of something alive. Some of my favorite shows were not my favorite because the band or artist was especially on point that night, but because the crowd was. They were part of the performance. I was part of the performance, at least in my head and in my heart.

In a bar show, there’s no barrier between you and the music. No stadium seating or giant LED walls. Just stage lights, amps, and the raw human charge that builds when a room full of people locks into the same rhythm. It’s communion, but with guitars instead of gospel. And it’s more honest than any algorithm-curated playlist could ever be. It is why I often say a stadium is the worst way to see live music.

That shared experience, the band feeding off the crowd, the crowd giving it right back, is the show. The boundary between performer and audience blurs. Everyone’s locked in the same flow, moving as one organism. No one’s worrying about tomorrow. You’re just there, singing with strangers who suddenly feel like friends.

And that’s why it stays with you. Long after the encore, long after your ears stop ringing, there’s a kind of emotional residue. A reminder that joy isn’t always something you create alone. Sometimes it finds you in a room full of people, in a chorus you didn’t even know you remembered, in a beat that hits just right.

So yeah, live music is my happy place. Not because it’s a distraction from life, but because, at its best, it is life. Loud, connected, human.