My Soulgasm with Fever Ray at Coachella

very brief description in case you don't want to go through what's below: I experienced ego loss but was so terrified at the time that I couldn't comprehend that I had reached nirvana. It took me 4 weeks to come to terms with it,  but shrooms, ecstasy, and Fever Ray equaled the most euphoric, awesome, and life-changing experience of my life.

It was my first time going to Coachella and I was super psyched to see Swedish electro-witch Fever Ray. If you haven't heard of Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife), go listen to her music. It will seriously change your life. Her lyrics are meant to speak to the subconscious, and she uses a synthesizer to change her voice into this eerie sound that sings to your soul. Whoever designs her set is genius. They purposely make it otherworldly and spooky: swirling incense, crazy demonic tribal costumes, mesmerizing lasers that catch the smoke in the air--all this combines with Karin's mystical voice to create a fantastical atmosphere that envelops the audience, transporting them to the shadowy realm of a  Scandinavian's witch's lair.

Sounds intense right? If that's the effect her performances are normally designed to have, imagine how it must feel for people who are  on something!
That's why my first reaction to watching Fever Ray was sheer terror. An hour before she went on, I dissolved an Ecstasy pill (Red Devil) on my tongue and then ate 3.5g of shrooms. I felt the effects of the pill first and become really excited and talkative. I don't know what the pill was cut with but I also got dry mouthed and extremely anxious. When the shrooms first kicked in, I was on the verge of having a horrible trip but convinced myself to stay put because this was Fever Ray's last performance in the US and I was going to be pissed as hell if I missed it. Thankfully, someone found me a bottle of water so I calmed down a bit afterwards. It's a lucky thing that the set  was delayed because in the beginning of my trip, I was freaking out and wouldn't have been able to handle the music.  I had taken shrooms a couple times before, but had totally forgotten that they make you extremely introspective.  I kept on thinking about stuff I didn't want to think about at a concert: schoolwork, the repressed subconscious, Freudian theory, how self-centered I am, etc. When "If I Had A Heart" started off the set, I had to close my eyes because everything was too intense. However, in doing so, the psychedelic patterns I saw became even more prominent and my introspective thinking increased. I became paranoid that everyone was staring at me and judging my actions so I would force myself to open my eyes to reassure myself that it was all in my head. Everyone was completely engrossed in  the music and wasn't paying any attention to me. This was the portion of my trip where I was thinking "oh shit, oh shit, fuck, i have at least another 2 hours of this to go through. Aaahhh I wish I could stop tripping!!!!!"  I now realize that was the period of intense fear that you go through before your ego is released from societal constraints.

I had this image of my self standing alone with Karin's voice pouring into my body while my being flowed out towards her like I was sacrificing myself. I no longer knew what song was playing, where I was, or who I was. All I knew was that this supernatural voice was filling my soul with an indescribable divinity which is impossible to define with words. There was one moment when Karin emerged and you saw her white face and long pale hair amid the swirling smoke. She held up her hands above her head and made a triangle symbol and lasers emanated from her body. Everyone in the  audience did the same symbol with their hands. I felt as if all my life had been leading up to that one terrifyingly beautiful moment. I completely understand now the song lyrics to "Dry and Dusty": we are capsules of energy. During her performance, my identity ceased to exist and I was nothing more than a capsule of energy, captivated by the colossal power of her wordless music. When I danced it was a religious dance of ecstasy. I would hug the people next to me and we swayed together. Sometimes I would snap out of it and the E would kick in.
At these times I was actually able to understand what song Fever Ray was singing . I would turn to the people next to me and hug them because we were in this beautiful moment together. We were all disciples of Fever Ray.

I understand now why shrooms are illegal because people will do crazy shit on them. If Fever Ray had commanded me to kill myself as a blood sacrifice to her I would have done it. It was like she was God and light was pouring forth from her. I really wanted to make a tribute to Karin but since I didn't have a knife or anything sharp to slash my wrists with, I decided to make do with what I had to worship her. During "Coconut", the last song of the set, I held up a beach ball in the air as an offering to Karin's awesomeness.

Watching Fever Ray was so surreal. I experienced an infinite number of emotions watching her set: sadness, fear, awe, ecstasy, confusion, enlightenment... It wasn't a fun experience, more terrifying yet awesome (in the sense that god is awesome). During those 70 minutes which seemed like an eternity,  I was the most emotionally and physically fulfilled I've ever been in my life.  I existed only as the sum of my perceptions.  Afterwards I was in a state of shock for three hours. My friend randomly found me standing before the stage ten minutes after the set had finished, not realizing that Fever Ray wasn't performing anymore.  I had no conception of what was going on around me, we went to go watch the band who closed the Gobi but I didnt hear the music or see the people moving past me. I was still seeing Fever Ray in my head, awestruck at her power.

 The next few days I was really down that I had tripped so hard and didn't experience music normally. I wasn%u2019t able to recall all the songs she had sung and I felt that I had wasted what might probably be my only opportunity to see her perform. I was also really worried that  because her music was on an entirely different level than anything I%u2019d ever heard before, I wasnt going to enjoy the rest of Coachella. Since I had never experienced anything of the sort before and couldn't comprehend what had happened, the first reactions I had to my trip were those of fear, confusion, and disappointment. On Saturday (the day afterwards), I was depressed while watching other sets play but snapped out of it after I listened to Im Not Done on my Ipod. The song lyrics pretty much told me not to be afraid of what I had just experienced and to get on with my life.  Thankfully I still had fun at Coachella but nothing came close to Karin's performance. 

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