I had it a couple of weeks ago, the auditory experience in question, and I am still thinking about it every now and then. I wish I had documented it in any way but, as it is often the case with me I was totally unprepared, so you'll have to do with just a couple of paragraphs. In my defence I was really tired, I was coming home from a short trip, I had been walking around all day with a heavy bag and had just got off the train thinking about the best way to get back to the house.

I have to make a quick aside here and explain I live not far from the big old football stadium. It's not downtown but it's not a bad place to live, quiet, definitely greener than the rest of the city. Except on match day, where you can expect anything from 50 to 75 thousands people to descend on the area. Navigating the streets and the subway in the two hours before kickoff is a bit tricky.

So I milled around the station for a bit, looked at magazines at the newsstand and then jumped into a cab at 18.00 sharp just as the players were taking the pitch, figuring most people would already be inside and seated by then. I asked the cab driver about it and he thought it was going to be ok, but I guess he also thought I really cared about the match and turned on the radio to follow the broadcast.

Thanks for bearing with me so far, and here's where it gets really interesting, at least for the 1% of people who care about these weird audio experiences.

Ten minutes into our trip the local team scored, the announcer kept breathlessly narrating the action over the crowd who had gotten exteremely loud. At that point our car exited the tunnel and swung by the boulevard that arcs all around the stadium and towards my neighborhood. The big concrete towers that frame the stands came into view and as we sped along it happened: the crowd chants that I was hearing on the radio suddenly entered through the car windows, loud and present, really there. It was like suddenly switching a filter effect off, taking off your headphones or putting your head above water. The bass hit full force and the earth seemed to shake. When listening to the radio or tv you think you are getting the full picture (and your brain probably helps while decoding the signals) but then I got suddenly exposed to the the real thing filling the frequency spectrum and the switch was very apparent and dramatic.

I think it would be a really cool little moment and a great experience to replicate in a gaming / vr or any type of audiovisual media environment.