I Went To The Japandroids Concert Dressed As The Android From Star Trek

Your first thought is probably “Why?” The answer is simple: to learn a lesson about humanity. And to embarrass my friends while riding on the subway.

My friend Blake informed me that the Androids from Japan, who are really actually human and from Vancouver, would be playing at Music Hall of Williamsburg. My first thought was, “I’m going to go to that.” My second thought was “I’m going to do something dumb at that.”

After buying my ticket, I was sitting in my captain’s chair watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix, when the Android Data struck me with his yellow eyes. Data, though he strives to be human, has no emotions. A rock concert would be the perfect place for an android to attempt eliciting an emotional response.

So the next day, I ordered a Starfleet uniform on Amazon and went to a makeup shop to get some white face paint, assuring the lady behind the counter that I (probably) wasn’t a Juggalo.

The transformation began around 7 o’clock the night of the show. I had to go from handsome 20-something male, to handsome ageless android.

The first thing that I found out was the Starfleet uniform I ordered was way too damn small. I could barely get my head through the mock-turtleneck collar. It was like crawling through the Jeffries tubes on the Enterprise. You get that reference, right?

Then I got my buddy Landen, who has long hair, to help me apply my white android makeup, even though I was perfectly capable of doing it myself in the mirror. I just thought it’d be funnier if he did it.

Once the transformation was complete, we hopped a train to Brooklyn. It was a crowded train, and nobody wanted to sit by me or hear me talk about warp coils or the energy output of the Enterprise’s deflector array. People did their best to not even look at me. If that’s the way we’re going to treat our robotic brethren in the future, then I just don’t even know what to say.

When we arrived at Music Hall of Williamsburg, people were really confused when they saw me. Probably because they’d never seen a real android at a rock concert before. I happened upon some human females conversing about music in the basement bar. A quick biometric scan with my Tricorder indicated that they were hot, so I went and talked to them. I forgot to get their names (which was very un-android like of me, androids have excellent attention to detail), so we’ll just call them three random names, like Deanna, Beverly and Tasha. Then I started layin’ the old android sauce on real thick.

What drew humans such as yourselves to a concert performed by artificial lifeforms?
Deanna: We like the music?
Beverly: ‘Droids are dope.
Tasha: [Points to Beverly] She invited me.

My positronic brain does not include subroutines for interpreting human emotions. Could you describe what you…“feel” when you listen to them?

Deanna: Just kinda wanna drive down the highway with the windows down, rockin’ out.

Beverly: I’d rather be right here, seeing them live. I love live shows.

Do you find that live performances produce a more potent emotional response?

Beverly: Hell yes!

We heard sound check finishing up, so we headed back up to the main stage, found a place in the crowd, and waited for them to go on. And when they did, all heck broke loose. But I kept in character, merely observing, stoically. Because that’s what androids do. They have no programming to process all that face-melting rock salad that the Japandroids where shredding. I nodded mathematically to the rhythms, and clapped when a song ended. And that’s about all I did.

After a while, I was like, "Shit, man. This is boring! Everyone is having mucho fun around me." And then it hit me: Data strives to be human. If there’s any place he would experience human emotions, it damn sure was right the hell here. Fortunately, my incredible android strength didn’t tear off any human limbs when I barreled CPU-first into the mosh pit.

It felt good to be human again and experience all of life’s emotions. Particularly rage.

It’s a good thing I snapped back to humanity, because Japandroids killed. Killed. And I took pleasure in them killing. We all did. Which was very human of us.

By the time it was over, you could barely tell that I was ever an android. I did look like one hell of a goober, though.

I learned a lot about humanity that night. If you’re a robot, and feel like being human, give live rock music a try. And if you were there that night, and I got clown makeup on you, hey, sorry about that. Perhaps the world isn’t ready to accept artificial lifeforms into society quite yet, but there will come a day. Until then, nothing ever seems weird on the Bedford L Train platform. Fascinating.

@theringadingkid