As fans scream, Calum Hood, a member of 5 Seconds of Summer, plays the song “What I Like About You” on his guitar and looks her way. Senior Megan Brulinski has butterflies.

“I made eye contact, and it was magical,” Brulinski said. “I’m such a fangirl.”

Going to concerts is a special pastime for many students. 63.08 percent of students who responded to The Patriot survey on April 25 went to a show during the summer.

Senior Megan Brulinski started attending concerts on a regular basis during her junior year, and typically attends four each year. She admits that her most recent concert is usually her favorite, but of all the concerts she has been to, the 5 Seconds of Summer concert in Silver Spring, Maryland on April 22 “seems to top all.”

Along with fellow seniors Emily Streett and Tasha Scotto, they “left [Brulinski’s] house at 5:30 a.m. to go to the venue. We got there around 7 a.m. We made friends with the crew and staff,” Brulinski said.

Brulinski, Streett, and Scotto waited for 2-3 hours until the opening act, Jackson Guthy, came out to meet people and give out hats. A few hours later, 5 Seconds of Summer arrived in black cars, and went inside for sound check. At 7 p.m., they entered the venue and were in the back of the first barricade because the show was general admission.

“We were probably 10 feet back from the stage, but throughout the concert, we kept moving up, so by the end of the night, we were almost right next to the stage,” Brulinski said. “The concert was amazing, and I’ll never forget it.”

Sophomore Avery Van der Steur takes the cake for going to the most concerts, having seen 43 shows in his lifetime.

Van der Steur is above the average amount of his classmates, since 58.90 percent of students have attended 1-5 concerts in their lifetime and 19.18 percent have been to 5-10 shows.

Van der Steur goes to 6-10 per year at various locations, but his favorite concert was two years ago for The Yonder Mountain String Band at Rams Head Live.

“It was my favorite concert because it was a concert for Ben Boniface [class of ‘10] who had recently passed away and that was his favorite band,” Van der Steur said.

“Rams Head is a very small venue and fits a large amount of people. All the family and good friends of the Bonifaces were there, and every time the band would finish a song everybody would scream,” Van de Steur said. “It was so incredibly loud, and you would just get this feeling of excitement in your stomach.”

Sophomore Conrad Gagnon goes to 3-6 shows a year, two of which are typically music festivals but for more unique bands. His favorite is Flaming Lips, and he met their lead singer Wayne Coyne just last year.

However, this year Gagnon might surpass his concert attendance record. Since 2014 started, he has already seen three concerts. So far this year, he has seen Wonder Years with Citizen, Real Friends, and Modern Baseball. This summer he plans to see the three more concerts, of which are Flaming Lips, Matt & Kim, and then Antlers in July.

Senior Matt Wagner has been a huge music fan all his life, experiencing all type of rock and metal music and constantly changing his favorite concert. In the past, he has seen big names such as Rush, Black Sabbath, and Lamb of God. Wagner’s favorite artist is Maynard James Keenan because “his music has gotten me through some really difficult moments in my life.”

Wagner’s favorite things about concerts is the energy. “Fans at a show get so hyped up about the music, and I feed off of that energy,” Wagner said.

According to Wagner, “Music brings people together too, which is really obvious when you go to a concert. All of the shows that I’ve been to have a really diverse audience with ages ranging from 7-70 and people from different backgrounds. That’s one thing that I love about music in general.”

Lauren Fabiszak is an A&E Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.