Sara's picture of herself and Pat is this week's NewHippys avatar, take a couple minutes out of your day to read her amazing story of how Pat's helped her. I know a lot of you guys were going through some rough things before and maybe even now, but just remember if you guys ever need to talk, I'm here... Here's Sara's Story!
So, my friend Nick and I decided to go see MOD SUN & Pat Brown. I had liked them for a while, but after listening to Pat's EP's as Good Problems, I absolutely fell in love with his sound, lyrics, and personality.
The past year have been really tough for me. I moved to Virginia in fall of 2011 and started my freshman year of high school here. I made great friends, I was in choir, I loved it. But my mom found out I'd been doing drugs, drinking, all that stuff, and made me move to homeschooling for 10th grade. My anxiety and depression have skyrocketed, mostly because I'm not around people as often as I was used to. But the thing that helped me get through it, was Pat's music.
So the day was finally here, to go see them. I had my letter written for MOD SUN, and an even longer one for Pat. Don't get me wrong, I love MOD SUN to death, it's just that Pat Brown's music speaks to me more. Normally during meet & greets, I'm so awkward. I shake and stutter and don't ever really say what I mean to say. Meeting the two of them though was completely different. I got to MOD SUN first, and gave him the letter I'd written. He gave it to J.L. to hold until later. I asked him to sign my meet & greet ticket and then took a picture with him. I then waited for some guys that were in front of us in line to talk to Pat, even though most people were just meeting MOD SUN and going back outside.
I walked up to Pat, and I gave him his letter. At first he looked kind of confused, like "why do you want me to sign this" so I told him, "that's for you!" and he looked so excited. "No way! That's so awesome. Look, I'll read this when I go back upstairs and then come talk to you afterwards, okay?" And of course I was psyched. So I got him to sign my meet & greet ticket as well, then got a picture with him. Let me just say, that man gives fantastic hugs.
So during the show, I was so excited to see Pat preform. He played a few songs, and then some other people came up and did their thing, and eventually it was time for MOD SUN. It was literally the best stage presence I've ever seen. MOD was in the crowd, Pat was doing flips and shit on stage, it was just perfect.
So after the show, I was waiting to talk to Pat, and when I came up to him he said that he was really busy and had forgotten to read my letter. Which I totally understood! I mean he's like, tour manager, dee jay, and he's got his own set that he has to do. It was fine, I told him that my twitter was in the letter and he could just tweet me or send me a DM when he read it, if he wanted.
So my friend, Nick, and I bought some merch, and were about to leave when Nick had to go to the bathroom. I stood outside and held his stuff, and Pat walked really... intently? out of the main room to the venue. He went into a small room, I'm not sure what it's for, but anyways Nick finished and we were walking outside. All of a sudden I hear Pat going "Sara!" and I turned around and he just gave me this HUGE hug. It was so awesome. He told me that he reads really fast and that he'd read my letter, and he told me how much it meant to him that his music had helped me so much.
I couldn't believe that I was standing there having a conversation with one of the people that means the world to me. He gave me about a million more hugs, and me and Nick left.
His new EP has a song on it, titled "Annually" about his personal battle with seasonal depression, something that I struggle with greatly, and that song is so accurate it's scary. I plan on getting the lyrics "this weather operates my soul" tattooed on me soon, and I can't wait.
Since then, I've decided to attempt to recover from self harm, and I'm doing the butterfly project. Essentially it's where you draw a butterfly, name it after someone you want to recover for, and if you cut yourself you kill the butterfly. I have a butterfly for Pat, and when I see him again (February 26 in Vienna, VA and February 27 in Richmond) I'm going to ask him to draw a butterfly on my arm for me.
Pat Brown's music is helping me get better and I'll always be grateful for that.