Mother Mother wants you to live your life the way you want.

“You’re dealing with a bunch of Gen Zers and Millennials who never get out of the house because of anxiety,” says Sonya, a mother who goes to shows with her daughter. She’s sporting a “No Values” punk rock festival hoodie from the night before; she attended that one with her daughter as well. As much as I’m loath to buy into blanket statements regarding generational identity, several members of those demographics express similar sentiments in response to my question as to why it’s been so difficult to get an interview from the crowd at Petco Park’s Gallagher Square, where British singer-songwriter Cavetown and Canadian indie rockers Mother Mother are performing.

Part of me is tempted to dismiss these statements about anxiety, because, after all, the audience willingly came to a crowded performance filled with unfamiliar people and unpredictable behavior. But if mental health were about logic, we could all just think ourselves better. It’s akin to asking someone what they have to be depressed about and, after getting no answer, telling them to smile and move on. Not helpful, and potentially dangerous in its implication that putting on a mask to conceal the war raging beneath it is the solution. I came for music and didn’t expect to wrestle with reality like this, but here we are.

Perhaps some food will get me out of the serious mind frame — and since we are at a baseball stadium, that means a hot dog! Those tasty tubes made from scraps of various animal by-products never fail to hit the spot. While munching on the ginormous dog, I spot a man named Leo Harris who I saw on the trolley ride here and introduce myself. He moves with cautiousness in the hot dog line and agrees to chat with me. I don’t want to keep the dude from dinner too long, so we get right down to brass tacks, and he echoes the sentiment expressed by the few people who have spoken to me regarding Cavetown (and even moreso, Mother Mother): that their music is a personal safe harbor. It’s a portable connection, available anywhere thanks to peoples’ ability to stream, pop in earbuds, and block out the outside world.

I tell Harris that I was going to ask him if he was attending the show when I saw him on the trolley, but that he looked locked into whatever he was listening to.  He laughs a little, and I can tell he’s smiling beneath the mask he is wearing for fear of getting sick. He shares his Instagram art gallery with me, and we both go to catch the rest of Cavetown’s set, which is performed from a stage adorned with colorful and whimsical inflatables. Cute. And then comes a guitar solo that commands my attention with its fluid emotion. The square is dense with fans of all ages, but mostly on the younger side of 20. Many form clusters with the people they came in with.

I hit the merch booth to score swag for my friend Rhys, who was unable to attend the show, and meet Alyssa, who’s sorting out her VIP package with the merch booth folks. They are as kind as she is patient. She tells me she brought her sister, that Mother Mother is her sister’s favorite band, and that they help her with her mental health. It makes perfect sense to me; I used to listen to “The Pass” by Rush on an endless loop, letting Geddy and the boys light the darkness instead of slashing my wrists.

Mother Mother’s performance sees their slickly produced songs revved up with a punk rock snarl worthy of The Dead Boys, and I notice the spaces between the clusters of groups have gotten smaller. Perhaps a sign of anxiety dissipating? Frontman Ryan Guldemond introduces “The Matrix” as a song about “Living your fucking life the way you want,” and the communal middle fingers and sing-along lines like “Fuck no to the 9-5 suicide, bleeding like a stuck pig” come from fans as young as preteen, which is cool. Because “no” is a complete sentence, and “fuck” is an intensifier. When the lights come up to the strains of “We Are the Champions” by Queen, it seems like I’m seeing a different crowd — elated, and freer somehow, singing along and acting out Freddie Mercury’s stage dramatics.

It’s the medicinal power of music in action: sometimes soothing wounds, other times tearing the scabs open so we can heal. Helping us choose life for one more day, diluting anxiety enough to live. Truly live.