To have a fan base is fun in all; we can recall the time we went to our favorite concert and screamed “I LOVE YOU!” into a sea of people in hope that the band would hear you. While reading Julia Armfield’s “Plug Your Women’s Ears with Wax” in Salt Slow, I got the sense of the Fantastic being present when I started comparing the band to a group of sirens. For those who are unfamiliar; Sirens are creatures with lovely voices who would sing to sailors and lure them into shipwrecks on the rocky coast of their island.
In this particular story, roadies share their experience of when they first heard the band’s music. Some claimed that they had fallen asleep in front of the tv and wok up to a song on their second album playing. the strange part was that they didn’t remember turning the tv back on. The description of the fans is what caught my eye; the glitter, the attitudes, their hunger and drive to be the closest to the band, the orange shirts that are sold, and they seem completely seduced by the lyrics. I wondered more about the band itself because it seems that their main audience tends to be teenage girls and most teenage girls are into boy bands (from my observation).
The reader is left to wonder about the band name and why the color orange was so important. Perhaps this color is Armfield’s favorite color and inspired her to keep a theme going.
What was your favorite band growing up?
Were you ever as “crazy” as these young women?
To what lengths have you gone in order to meet or even make eye contact with the band?
Olympia,
I really enjoyed reading your post. Do you think that over-adrenaline could play into an element of the fantastic? Not really like an over obsession but more of like the constant high or addiction of the feeling from the music. This story kind of reminds me of “Dangerous Laughter” where Clara overdoses because she was so addicted to it.