“We’re Patent Pending, and we’re here to save the world.”

                It would seem arrogant, wouldn’t it? For the frontman of a band to proclaim via raging amplifier in a packed house that he and his crooning cronies could rescue an entire planet of their problems. It would seem condescending and in fact, disgruntling, to watch a band have the balls to promise a gaggle of troubled youth devotion, safety, and hope (because it is- it is hard to be a kid). It would be all of this, if that frontman wasn’t Joe Ragosta, and those cronies weren’t the Second Family.

                I have been on both sides of the speakers. I’ve been the performer- the one well rehearsed, or well versed, yet under constant pressure to execute the delivery just right. To surface the magnitude of saving my audience expects. That they need. That they deserve. And I’ve been the girl with wet eyes, watching diligently, holding fast to the sight of my favorite band playing the song that means so much to me. To my longevity. The song that saves me. Both are challenging roles to play, and neither can exist without the other. It’s exhilarating, isn’t it? The idea that we can help each other.

                Monday night was Christmosh 2011 and tucked thinly into the stage left curtain, I watched a familiar scene unfold as the set list reached, “One Less Heart To Break.” It was, as always, a setting of pure and unmuddled bluntness; this is the part where we sing the song you’ve been waiting to hear. It would still sound cocky, of course, if you didn’t know what incredible possibilities that bluntness allows.

                As the band anticipated the ending of the singer’s spoken introduction, I gazed across the radius of the scene before me. I wanted to take it in yet another time, from drummer to frontman, to yearning souls in the front row. And there I saw one soul- a girl’s- crying. My friend Amy stood next to me and had seen the crying girl as well. “I wish we could hug her.” Amy said, and I nodded in agreeance. We looked back to the stage, awaiting the song to start. Then I thought; we are at a Patent Pending show. If you can’t hug a total stranger at a Patent Pending show, then where the hell can you? So Amy and I made our way to the front row and to the girl. Amy, she wrapped a tiny, genuine arm around her for the duration of “One Less Heart To Break,” and I held fast to her shaking hand. It isn’t so much, I suppose, the delivery of the saving after all, but more, the thoroughness in which you execute your promises. Patent Pending saved Amy and I once upon a time, we were just passing their song along.

                Most of the people reading this blog now already know; Patent Pending is unlike any other band I have primped or prosed about. It is absolutely true what Joe says; the band-to-fan relationships are real. They are real friendships, with real, known names and faces and back stories. The Second Family is not only confident, but they are effective and taking on new members every day. Me? I am a full heart, turned jaded runaway, turned hopeful tourmate, finally turned believer. And so, it would seem, not only do I believe that Patent Pending can do what they proclaim, but I’m certain they already have. Little pieces of it. And those little pieces are off to save other little pieces, and so on and so forth until the hope has spread bigger than that smile on the frontman’s face. It is possible to save the world, you see… you just have to do it one heart at a time.   

…Terica.