Nine and a half hours. Some things are worth the wait. The 1975 is one of those things.

I stepped out of my car at 12:30 on Sunday afternoon in downtown Kansas City with nothing but a portable phone charger and an extra sweatshirt.  Needless to say, I was completely unprepared for the hours that awaited me. I heard rumors of people arriving the night before to sit in front of the Uptown Theatre and wait for the doors to open, but the multitudes of people who had already gotten there still surprised me. They were all stocked up; lawn chairs, pillows and blankets, card games, stereos, and laptops scattered the crowded sidewalks. The line was already an eighth of a mile long, sprawling down the side of the building and around the corner.

About an hour into the day, my friend and I decided to take a walk downtown (editor’s note: not highly advised) to see if we could find means of entertainment, while the other two members of our group hung out at our spot in line. We discovered a cute little restaurant called Chubby’s Diner. Modeled after an old school diner, Elvis and Monroe covered the walls and a miniature jukebox stood at breakfast bar. At the Diner, my friend and I met some girls who told us they had been waiting in line since 1:00 a.m. that morning, and still were not the first people in line. Their guess: the people who first got to the concert venue arrived around 11:00 p.m on Saturday night.

We got back to the line at about 5:00 p.m. The line was stretching down the block, roughly about half a mile long. At 5:30, people began rushing to the front. The doors weren’t even supposed to open until 7:00! I spent the next hour and a half in line being pushed by people behind me. I’ve never been so close to strangers in my life.

Finally the doors opened and my friends and I got a spot about 20 feet away from the stage. The opening act, Young Rising Sons, played for about an hour (and after the concert I bought their signed CD), and then another opening act, Cruiser, came on. The first band definitely impressed me more. Finally, around 9:00, the band I had been waiting for the whole night took the stage. The 1975 began with “The City.” Their signature rectangle frame flashed in the background and the fog machines made the concert even more surreal. The lead singer, Matty Healy, was friendly and personable and even told the crowd to put down their phones for just one song, “Me,” so he could “see our faces.” On the third to the last song, the electric guitar started to play the opening chords to “Robbers.” The crowd went wild.  With that being my favorite song,  I was ecstatic. I felt the electricity and excitement pulsing through the audience. The verse “you look so cool” resonated through the air, and I knew the nine and a half hours to see The 1975 were worth the wait.

A few hours after the concert ended, I was still in shock at how amazing it was. Out of the many words that could describe the night, the one that pops out to me most is this: Iconic.

According to Matty Healy, the band will not be coming back to Kansas City again until after their newest album comes out next year.