Confessions of a Wizard Rock Fangirl

We'll start with the confession portion of this evening. I have two things to tell you.

1) I love wizard rock.

2) I only discovered wizard rock one year ago, on July 25th, 2008, during The Mudbloods, JFF, Whomping Willows, Remus Lupins show in Pittsburgh.

I went to this wizard rock show on a whim, and I was totally amazed by it (of course). I had wanted more friends that were into Harry Potter since Deathly Hallows. Most of my friends had read it; some had even gotten the book at the midnight release with me. By the time we had all read and discussed it, most of them were done. That was just...the end. And I didn't want it to be.

When I went to the show, most people were much younger than I was. The only ones that seemed my age were the bands, so after they were done playing, I went over to talk to them. I ended up talking to Alex Carpenter for a bit and left wanting to know more. Here's part of my blog entry from four days later:

"Being completely oblivious and ignorant can have certain advantages, I suppose. Since going to the Wizard rock show on Friday, I have spent much time listening to and finding Wizard rock. I can't get over how adorable it is to listen to songs and sing along about Harry Potter. Seriously, so much fun. Why did I never pay attention to this before?

But it turns out, uneducated in wrock as I was, that meeting Alex Carpenter is a Wizard rock fangirls' dream come true. I also introduced myself to Matt Maggiacomo of The Whomping Willows since he was sitting right there. Since I had missed most of his set, I really had no idea who he was, and have only found out by seeing pictures of him online while finding more wrock.
I wonder if they are so used to squeeing from their fans that they were amused by the fact that I was not? Did they realize I had no idea? If so, was that refreshing or disappointing?"

This past year, I went to 20 shows and saw 21 different bands perform, in 5 different states.

This past year, I started writing for and running a website and had more than my friends and family read the things that I wrote. This introduced me to one of my favorite people ever.

This past year, I invited strangers to sleep at my house. I've also slept at near strangers' houses and felt perfectly comfortable doing so.

This past year, I stopped saying "this person I know online" and started saying "my friend" about people I had never met before. I also tackle hugged many of them when I finally met them.

This past year, I have gotten more hugs than I thought possible. I also learned the definition of "stink shoulder", but I didn't mind at all.

I could go on and on, obviously.

The other day, I was with a group of friends, one of which doesn't live in town. The subject of wizard rock came up, and one of my friends said, with pride, "You know, Freya's pretty important in the wizard rock community. She runs their website and is friends with the bands and travels all the time to go see them." I quickly explained that being "important" in the wizard rock community was a slightly ridiculous concept since we're such a tight-knit community. But I couldn't help but feel amazed that one of my Muggle friends thought of it like that. Like it was something that he thought was admirable and worth mentioning. It's become how I'm defined, and I'm perfectly happy about that.

A year and a day ago, if you had suggested that this is how my life would be, I would have stared at you blankly. And laughed. And now I can't imagine wanting anything more than what I have now. I love this. I love our community. I love the music. And I love having all of you in my life.