There is something special about being in a room full of people screaming, in unison, “Fuck the burger–rerun it with just the cheesy fries!” And that was just where I found myself standing at about 8:45 on Saturday night.

As part of my apparent quest to see every Masquerade-featured white boy internet-famous rap act of 2013, I went to Watsky‘s show this past weekend. By myself! Which was very exciting for about 30 seconds, until I realized that it was an all ages show and so I probably just looked like someone’s chaperoning older sister, since I was standing in the back next to the put-upon parents. (Even better was the part where I realized that the 21+ show above us was actually a Rocky Horror Picture Show-themed burlesque event. I love my weirdo city.)

(I go feel superior for approximately two minutes while I drank my overpriced PBR at the 8th-graders, until I remembered my dad very kindly attending a Decemberists show with me when I was in 7th grade, and then realized that that Not That Long Ago that I was the irritating wee concert-goer. I am young! But older than the average audience member! Cognitive dissonance!)

The show was a great deal of fun. Unexpectedly for me, Watsky was traveling with a live band–backing vocalist, keyboardist, what sounded like a bassist (I couldn’t see him, because I am short and 14-year-old boys are tall), and a truly fantastic drummer. And–perhaps thanks to the young skew of the audience–the level of drunk dumbassery in the crows was limited. I didn’t have to use my combat boots once!

For a show that–during the encore–included the audience screaming along with “I don’t give a fuck!” as part of a chorus, it was weirdly emotional. Part of that might be my usual oversensitivity combined with recent events, but I think there’s a chunk of that which comes from Watsky being not that far off from my age.

When he’s rapping about depression, or disillusionment with resume-building*, or the terror of a parent’s mortality**, he’s talking about the aspects of my life that very much the flipside of the Taylor Swift end of my experience of 22. And that was weird. I mean, I love the Decemberists dearly, but the experiences of an 18th-century Spanish prostitute are less explicitly connected to my life experiences At The Moment.

So that was pretty great. I am glad I went, and delighted that because of the youngins I was able to leave with none of my clothes stained by other folks’ beer or cigarettes. Huzzah, youths!

* If you have never felt the urge to flee from a networking humblebrag fest on a ceiling-ladder, then truly you have not had the full liberal arts college experience.

** I mean, some of them were a little more on-the-nose about my life situation than others.