Anticipation

Anticipation is a very child-like state of being.  Remember when you were a kid?  There was always something to anticipate, to look forward to, wasn't there?  There probably wasn't a time when you were a child that you weren't looking forward with anticipation - even if that anticipation was only from the current moment to the very next one to come along.  As we mature, I wonder whether we tend to lose this state of anticipation, this state of child-like being.  I don't know what takes over from it, or at the very least dents it: cynicism borne from responsibility or tiredness, a sense of having heard/seen it before, or a reduction in the value of momentary novelty because awareness is so heightened by knowledge and experience? 

When I was younger and getting into music in a big way, I would clutch my latest music purchase and rush home, eager to hear what I had in my hands.  There was a delay between holding a mute sliver of plastic and placing it on a turntable and giving it voice - but this was all a part of the anticipation, that sense of what might be, the frisson of the unknown but familiar.  I would absorb the packaging whilst listening to the music.  I would allow the music devoted space and time - doing nothing but listening to it, taking it in and letting it absorb too.  I would often listen to it many, many times over. 

Over the course of time, I have like many others, experienced musical disappointments, but that sense of almost apprehensive anticipation is as strong as ever.  I have recently been listening to the latest album by one of my favourite bands, Hocico - a dark electro band from Mexico that I have liked for many years now.  Times have changed somewhat from those days of bringing home a precious cargo of music in my school rucksack or in 12-inch square shopping bags with the name of a record shop emblazoned on them.  The new Hocico album appeared as a downloadable album on Napster before the physical object that I have ordered has arrived through my letterbox.  It didn't feel quite the same, but it didn't change my sense of eagerness at being privy to their latest offering.  I did briefly consider waiting until I could actually place the CD into a tray and hold the case in my hands, but I decided to download the album.  Whilst I downloaded it (I waited until its entirety was on my hard drive so I could play it from start to finish in the manner in which it was intended) that sense of nervous anticipation was there again.  It was almost with a tremble that I clicked on the "play" button and let the reality of it replace the hope and anticipation.. 

There's always a fear associated with following an artist or a band over a significant period of time.  It's the downside of forming attachments, of building relationship, of feeling loyalty. Will this latest album resonate with me?   Has the band retained those elements that appealed to me?  Has the band or have I stayed in the place or at least moved in parallel to that which first attached us and caused a relationship to form and grow over time?   I am sure all music lovers have at some point experienced the fear and the reality of answering "no" to any of those questions.  The answer that often triggers a sense of detachment and lessening of the resonance between an artist and a follower, and ultimately leads to a breakdown of the relationship.  Without over-dramatising it (!), a disappointment of that nature can almost feel like a relationship that has soured, like a rejection from a potential partner, the disloyalty of a trusted friend, or the unravelling of a strongly-held bond or belief.

Just for the record (ha!), the Hocico album didn't disappoint, far from it.  Long- and highly-anticipated, it delivered in a way that exceeded my hopes and expectations (I can only hope and trust that it met their hopes and expectations too, since that also, is part of the equation).  I hope to never lose that sense of anticipation, as challenging as it can be at times.  I hope that it continues in music as it does in other fields of my life.