We were barely on time for our last Mosaic gig. It was the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, which was an odd choice since neither of us were huge ska fans. I had bought the tickets on impulse - because the Sistic hotline kept me waiting too long while processing my other ticket purchases, and I started browsing through the festival lineup again. (This is the same way I'll be the first person to decide what food to order while the rest are still pondering over the menu; but because they take so long to think, I'll start changing my mind back and forth till I end up with a dish I didn't really mean to eat.)

They gave everyone different neon glowsticks before the gig.. those bendy ones you can twist into a bracelet and wear. The air was electric right from the get-go. The band gave a high energy performance from start to end, and the audience was lapping it up. It was the kind of concert where it was clear that seats were unnecessary. It was the best Mosaic gig I've attended this year, but what I wanted to blog about is this:

During the encore after the gig, the folks sitting at the upper levels started throwing their glow bracelets down. It was like being trapped in a magical shower of tiny bouncing neon halos. You joined in the fun to throw away your neon bracelet and urged me to follow suit. But I didn't. Somehow I thought I could preserve this memory if I kept mine on. Suddenly, you reached out your hand and caught a flying bracelet in mid-air. You laughed and said, "Wow, did you see that?" and turned around to hurl it away again.

And this is the precise moment I want to remember.