Myanmar’s most famous rock band Iron Cross give an impressive performance at a concert in Kandawgyi park on October 14.

EVEN as a foreigner with little understanding of the Myanmar language, attending a music concert here is a spiritual and moving experience.
But now I think I know why.

On Full Moon holiday Yangon pumped to the sound of two distinctly different concerts, one at the Yuzana Garden hotel for hip-hop fans, and the other at Kandawgyi Park featuring popular rock band Iron Cross.

Since I had already experienced a fantastic hip-hop and rock concert at the Yuzana Garden Hotel on a previous visit to this country two years ago, I chose to see Iron Cross, a group much revered.I was not disapp-ointed with my choice.

Travelling to the park wasn’t that easy as Yangon’s streets were alive with people and taxis waited in traffic jams, when what seemed to be the entire city population turned out to celebrate the lighting festival.

Thousands gathered at the park, and not all of them to watch Iron Cross, but in the inner sanctum the band pulled a capacity crowd.

Fans crammed into the arena and jockeyed for position shoulder to shoulder, some even climbing trees to see the band.

Under the bright full moon, rock fans swayed and sang their hearts out as the band led the way through its varied repertoire of pop, rock and heavy metal tunes.

I have commented before that Myanmar concert crowds are the happiest, most vocal I have found anywhere in the world but this time I was particularly impressed that everyone seemed to know all the words and nearly all were prepared to sing them.

This is indeed, a music-blessed nation, and an article I read this week may help explain why Myanmar concerts are so memorable.

It’s all to do with oxytocin.

“What’s that?” I hear you say.

Well, it seems oxytocin is a hormone produced in the same part of the brain that helps us recognise people’s faces far more readily than cats, cars or cows.

The hormone resembles ecstasy, the drug popular with night-clubbers in the west as it makes us feel more sociable.

Last week the Arizona State University held a conference on oxytocin and music.

Singapore Straits Times writer Andy Ho quotes former rock musician turned univer-sity professor David Levitin, of Canada’s McGill University, as saying that when people sing or listen to music the brain releases more oxytocin.

When people sing together they feel attuned to one another’s feelings. When they sing in harmony they feel similarly aroused and think they are truly at one with others.

But it helps explain why music fans feel so connected to their idols, says the professor.

In the case of Iron Cross, the singing and chanting reached a crescendo when the band announced the reappearance of its lead singer. The arena resounded to the chant of what sounded like “Nooey, Nooey” to my untrained foreign ears.

But not understanding a word doesn’t prevent me from having a spiritual experience with the crowd.

Professor Levitin, rock-muso turned neuroscientist, has even written a book about oxytocin, entitled “The world in six songs: How the musical brain created human nature”.

In it he says all music talks about one or more of six things: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love.

I experienced all six at the Iron Cross concert the other night.