like a rock, like a planet, like a fucking atom bomb
Yesterday I spent the evening crammed against sweaty strangers who sang all the words, thrust their fists, and yelled with me as Bad Religion gave us the evening of a lifetime.
To start the evening off, Lightning Woodcock played. The most redeeming quality of this band was their equipment. The asshole front man (who only knew two words: "pussy" and "motherfucker") had a beautiful sea foam green Gretch with silver hardware.
Next came The Bronx. I had never heard them before, but Patrick vouched for them. They were solid, crowd-pleasing, hardcore-sounding, and were obviously stoked to be there. At one point, the lead singer told everyone to put their hands in the air, which we did. Then he said, "We're going to send this next one to God." Kashia and I were not the only ones to take our hands down after that.
We had to wait almost an hour between The Bronx and Bad Religion. As the minutes ticked by, the crowd hooped and hollered, some of them thought they were sneaky getting high before the lights went down, and I had a hard time just standing there. At first, I was totally casual about it, but then it hit me that pretty soon Greg Graffin and his buddies were going to walk out on the stage, be only a few feet away, and play all my favorite songs. Before they even came on, I was wringing my hands, jumping up and down, and grinning like an idiot.
When they finally took the stage, I laughed to myself because Greg Graffin was wearing a cotton polo shirt that looked like he had taken it from my dad's closet. (I continued to find this hilarious all night.) After that, it was sort of an excited blur of getting thrashed by the crowd and my throat hurting from all the smoke and scream-singing. When they played Stranger Than Fiction fairly early on the set, I realized that I was crying. I'm not sure why, but I was; crying and grinning and singing. Maybe it was because Bad Religion has stuck with me since the first time I heard them, defining a huge part of my life and of myself. Maybe it was because I didn't need my time machine to see them in all their glory because they have never lost their glory. Maybe it was because I couldn't share that experience with Hannah, Molly, or my dad. Maybe it was because I was so god damn tired! For whatever reason, I was crying, and kept crying off and on through the whole show.
I didn't have enough money to buy a shirt, which bummed me out, but early on a crowd surfer went flying over mine and Kashia's heads, and the crowd surfer's shirt came off her belt or out of her pocket or something because Kashia was left with it in her hand. And she handed it to me. I'm not sure I could have been happier in that moment.
After a good long while, I got tired of elbowing and being elbowed by the girl beside me, and I crawled out of the crowd and reassembled myself (my bra had come unhooked in the crowd, and my shirt was all twisted). They played Sorrow shortly thereafter, and I couldn't sing because I was crying so hard. I thought of when my sisters and dad performed it together and other people cried. I thought of all those car rides with the whole family when my mom would said, "Play that Sorrow song! I like that one," and we would, and everyone would sing all the words at the tops of our lungs. I thought of Molly and all the shit she has put herself and our family through and how, if she had been at the concert, I would have been unable to take my mind, or eye, off of her, and it would have ruined the concert for me because I would have been scared shitless she would run off and I would possibly never see her again.
I cannot tell you how happy I am that I got to go that concert. William and I have been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and almost nothing else because of it, but it was worth several more weeks of sandwiches. Greg said they hadn't been to Portland for a while because marketers told them they wouldn't pull enough of a crowd, but he told us that they were completely wrong about that, and that they would be coming back to Portland for sure.
At the end of the night, my clothes and hair were glued to my body, my entire face ached from smiling and singing so hard, and I was still crying a little. I would so full of excitement and energy but I still couldn't hold back the yawns. Needless to say it was a night well-spent.
So next time they play Portland, come join me. I promise you won't forget or regret it!