Whenever, for unfathomable reasons called bad judgement and peer pressure, I did consent to going clubbing, the second I entered the door I felt like Lieutenant Commander Data sent to a very strange alien planet to investigate the habits and customs of the locals, to his great puzzlement and moderate amusement. My advantage over Data was that I am not immune to alcohol, yet I discovered that not even copious amounts of it could override my pre-programmed sense of humour. This was, is, and will be a gathering of mildly to lethally inebriated humanoids,  possibly under the influence of other, unmentionable substances too, occasionally looking for similar mates, with roughly 80% of them being completely unable to synch with the rhythm of the music. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as some would say, I simply felt the unbelievably strong urge to immediately run off, if only I had a handy teleportation device on my chest, as the fortunate Data did. 

I do, of course, occasionally move around to the beat, most probably generally off tune myself. As a friend kindly noted, you indie people can’t dance because there’s always a tote bag with a thick volume of Sartre inside dangling off your shoulder. I’ve never been enamoured with the gloomy French thinker, but I plead guilty to the tote bag. It’s lovely to feel it mildly landing against your hip while you gently sway to the music, with tiny steps and tiny arms movements, almost simple twitches. Most people who do that will have their eyes closed too, because, you see, we are dancing inside our heads.

And when it comes to dancing inside your head, Com Truise is the perfect soundtrack, the kind of synthwave that, when listened to carefully, while sitting, lying down or perhaps shuffling your feet just a little, seems to lose its actual source. Are these sounds being played to me, or am I playing them inside my head? They can also disappear a little, while still being there: Com Truise, alongside Tycho, is my go to music for when I am writing, or doing any kind of activity which requires full focus. Silence won’t do, because silence is empty and cold, words and guitars won’t do, because they are full of attention seeking.

Seth Haley (yes, the question was asked in the crowd, is his name really Com Truise, surprise, it is not) himself seems to be one of us, more slaves to the inner rhythm than anything outside. He comes onto stage, gets very preoccupied with his gadgets, fidgets around with them for approximately one and a half hours, then bides a smiling farewell. Another deep thinker in attendance did remark that he is, let’s say slightly portlier than your average musician, to which his friend remarked that this must be because he does not flail his arms around like Avicii. And what a relief that is, there are few things in the universe, as Data’s science could surely attest, more ridiculous than a grown man jumping around to a mash up of other people’s tunes yelling ‘everybody feeling good tonight?!’

I always have an urge, on those occasions when this happens also known as accidentally crossing in front of Sziget’s main stage on my way to get a spritzer, to lift a shy finger and say me, I am not feeling too good right now. But of course in space no one can hear you scream, and that is true for DJ sets as well, so I just trot off and console myself with the thought that one day I will be comfortably moving my arms just a little to my mindscapes and the music of Com Truise and when I leave the boat into the slushy March night no one will yell at me to find out whether I felt good. It just so happens that I very much did. 

PS: There was a small number of people who were convinced this is the arm flailing kind of gig, and when it wasn’t, they still danced to what must have been Tiesto playing in their head. I thus conclude that there are people who have converters installed in their brains which turn anything into Tiesto. I always knew the world was a scary place.