Forty dollars is too much for a band shirt

The price for a shirt at the Arkells concert was forty dollars & this was pretty steep back then but the concert was mostly an exercise in love for me & I wanted to remember it somehow & we missed Lord Huron so I couldn’t buy that shirt & so I bought the Arkells shirt & now it is full of holes & properly worn & the Arkells aren’t my favourite band but this is my favourite band shirt

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the crowd at the Odie Leigh show was kinda shit but there was someone in the front row with a homemade shirt & the ink had long ago run & just for this I bought a pink Odie Leigh shirt & someone at the coffee shop said cool shirt but they didn’t know Odie Leigh

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somewhere along the road I inherited a Weakerthans shirt & gave it away because nothing compares to the joy of sharing of your favourite band & seeing someone else in your favourite band shirt & especially if it is someone you love

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I am easily pressured into buying band merch so I pay for a t-shirt even when “band” is a generous way to describe four teenagers who packed into a van for five shows & who also sold me a CD they burned on the drummer’s Macbook

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in closets across the world someone is crawling into their favourite band shirt & is living briefly in a world where things never ended

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I have bought two Mt. Joy shirts because the graphics are always dope & because this feels like a particularly cool band shirt to have & they are mostly associated with good things

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my brother & I bought the same Brockhampton shirt right before they broke up & this isn’t a concert shirt but it still remembers a very specific moment

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at the Kendrick concert I couldn’t afford a shirt but later that week I saw someone walking around downtown with one & said wasn’t that a sick show & he dapped me up & this was a joy

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I have another Weakerthans shirt but this one is unofficial & doesn’t really say their band name & this shirt is purely an act of quiet devotion

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there are few greater joys than the moment in which you recognize someone else’s band shirt or someone recognizes your band shirt & in this way it becomes a kind of uniform & a way of belonging & isn’t this half the point of music anyway?

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a band called Litvar from Connecticut played at something called Earth Jam for a handful of stoned college kids in the rain & it was actually pretty tight & I spent some of the money I made selling chapbooks on a litvar shirt that earns me a reasonable amount of attention so this might be my most obscure one

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I saw someone wearing an Injury Reserve shirt from their final tour & I missed that tour & will never get to see them so it was with a hand of sadness that I said man that’s a cool shirt how was the show? & I imagine it was with a hand of sadness that he said good, man, great, & we both threw ourselves at the pit with a little extra abandon

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I had a friend who had a friend in a band who knew the drummer for Hippocampus & who wore this friend’s friend’s band shirt on stage or something like that

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I like walking around a city the day after a big concert to see who is wearing band shirts & this might be childish but I like seeing who cares enough about something to claim their love on a screenprinted rag of cotton

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a concert is an exercise in brief living but my band shirts are a testament to all the tickets we can’t afford & the thick crowds & the weird venues & the days & evenings spent trying to find ourselves somewhere in a setlist

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I know most of you will have greater collections & cooler bands & yes I want you to tell me all about your shirts & where you got them & what forever means to you

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I’ll wear my band shirts forever until they hang off my shoulders like a weatherbeaten flag

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I hope this same joy for you & for everyone you love.