An excerpt from Sevendust
Ok, so this is a work in progress. However, I'm going to finish making egg salad and then come back to this...
Somewhere in the middle of Soil’s set, Troy and Josh decided to smoke in the venue. Not cigarettes. They invited me to do it, but I opted out, as I don’t want to go to jail for something stupid. I’d rather get arrested at the protest than at a Sevendust concert. So in leau of smokage, I made my way for the mob.
Most would have you believe that the mob near the stage is a dangerous place to be. All they’re looking for is to beat you up or hurt you or grab your ass or something. It’s one of those popular myth things you hear when a rock band comes to town from all the blue haired old ladies that went to see the Everly Brothers back in their prime.
‘Don’t go out there! You’ll never come back!’
I made a beeline for the furthest front I could get, muscling my way through the spaces of boys that tower over top of me into the heat and sausage and sweat.
‘The first concert I saw here was Sammy Hagar and his first band thirty years ago!’ one man who looks like he’s been around the block a view times announce to the crowd of youth around him. He was about fifty from what I could tell, grey hair, and just as much fueled up for the fire of the concert.
‘Really?’ I ask him. He starts telling me about how he was skinny with bright red hair at the time and how they rocked the house and shit. I see myself going through the same speech when I get that age, talking about Molly Hatchet when I was ten.
So the WGBF people get on stage and thank the crowd for supporting rock music (how can we not, youth of America? It’s rock and roll! It‘d be easier if Ticket Bastard didn‘t rip everyone off every chance they got, monopoly whores of corporate America.), saying that ‘Up next, SEVENDUST!’, crowd going nuts, chanting and yelling for the band when Hank Williams Jr. comes pouring over the loudspeaker as an interlude. A country boy can survive, indeed, in a mass of people in black and metal drove through their faces and ears and eyebrows. We knew the words to a man two worlds away from this rock and roll, singing along for the world to hear.
The curtain drops. The crowd goes wild like a mad beast, thrashing and pushing as one entity, Budweiser falling from the sky, the Beast burning bright and sweat dripping down its back. People go up, crowd surfing with feet and arms flying, pushed along by the Beast, ejected from their free flight into the waiting arms of the burly security guard waiting them at the front of the bar, only to be turned out to the back of the beast, waiting for the next ride on top of a pillar of hands.
A whiff of marijuana floats by me as the heat lulls me, soothes me like the sun beating down on my back. The Beast smokes marijuana in public, refusing and mocking this whole idea of illegality. I found out later that was the work of Josh and Troy, somewhere behind the Beast, lost in the sea. I was told later on that some lady asked to hit the joint and her kids asked after she turned away ‘Did you just give our mom pot? She won’t even let us smoke it!’
A note to all of those blue haired ladies - It was nothing like the Beast that was to rape me in the floor, to grope me while I was jumping, single me out as one of many in the sea. One body offered up to the gods of the Beast riding to the front knocked the glasses from my face while the rock raged on. The Beast stopped with its million cell phones, found my glasses, put them back on my face, and turned back to its thrashing with all the fury.
‘What can you do?’ I yelled at a fellow glasses wearer and Led Zepplin fan to my right. ‘There’s nothing you can do!’ I asked him what his name was (I’ve forgotten since now), telling him I was Heidi from the radio station. ‘You’re shitting me?’ he yells back. I show him my driver’s license brought for beer that I never bought, his eyes get all wide, and he nudges his friend beside him.
‘Dude! It’s the girl who took her clothes off for backstage passes!’
‘Are you serious?’ his friend yells back at him, his eyes wide too, like I’m some sort of famous person. The music began again and all conversation was lost.
Someone’s tennis shoe graces my face in their joy of getting moved along and I tasted dirt from the world on accident. It tastes like that American Dream that we’ve all lost, being told we’re all supposed to work hard for nothing and buy things we don’t need. The American Dream is not lost! Do not fear! It’s alive and well with the beast, hidden from view, because if The Man knew it was still alive he’d take it all away. They made everyone pay for the Living Dream but we took it back from them in the sea, drowned the greed and lust and folly of the radio, the Beast awakened. All the money in the world can’t buy the joy drenched in monsoon heat.
The moshers push and the only person who looked upset was Mr. Hagar Fan, caught in the grips of the Beast. He was caught amidst youth, hungry for the recovery of all The Man took away from us before we were born.
The house lights come up after the second encore and the beast disperses. I bum a cigarette off of the fellow with glasses from earlier as a bouncer the size of a fridge announces it’s time to get out of the venue, last call, you don‘t have to go home but you can‘t stay here. The sea pours out onto the steps, out into the night, breathing the cool air of the stars, looking for their cars and a pretty girl to go home with.
My posse goes in search of the tour bus to try and achieve one goal of the evening.
Somewhere in the middle of Soil’s set, Troy and Josh decided to smoke in the venue. Not cigarettes. They invited me to do it, but I opted out, as I don’t want to go to jail for something stupid. I’d rather get arrested at the protest than at a Sevendust concert. So in leau of smokage, I made my way for the mob.
Most would have you believe that the mob near the stage is a dangerous place to be. All they’re looking for is to beat you up or hurt you or grab your ass or something. It’s one of those popular myth things you hear when a rock band comes to town from all the blue haired old ladies that went to see the Everly Brothers back in their prime.
‘Don’t go out there! You’ll never come back!’
I made a beeline for the furthest front I could get, muscling my way through the spaces of boys that tower over top of me into the heat and sausage and sweat.
‘The first concert I saw here was Sammy Hagar and his first band thirty years ago!’ one man who looks like he’s been around the block a view times announce to the crowd of youth around him. He was about fifty from what I could tell, grey hair, and just as much fueled up for the fire of the concert.
‘Really?’ I ask him. He starts telling me about how he was skinny with bright red hair at the time and how they rocked the house and shit. I see myself going through the same speech when I get that age, talking about Molly Hatchet when I was ten.
So the WGBF people get on stage and thank the crowd for supporting rock music (how can we not, youth of America? It’s rock and roll! It‘d be easier if Ticket Bastard didn‘t rip everyone off every chance they got, monopoly whores of corporate America.), saying that ‘Up next, SEVENDUST!’, crowd going nuts, chanting and yelling for the band when Hank Williams Jr. comes pouring over the loudspeaker as an interlude. A country boy can survive, indeed, in a mass of people in black and metal drove through their faces and ears and eyebrows. We knew the words to a man two worlds away from this rock and roll, singing along for the world to hear.
The curtain drops. The crowd goes wild like a mad beast, thrashing and pushing as one entity, Budweiser falling from the sky, the Beast burning bright and sweat dripping down its back. People go up, crowd surfing with feet and arms flying, pushed along by the Beast, ejected from their free flight into the waiting arms of the burly security guard waiting them at the front of the bar, only to be turned out to the back of the beast, waiting for the next ride on top of a pillar of hands.
A whiff of marijuana floats by me as the heat lulls me, soothes me like the sun beating down on my back. The Beast smokes marijuana in public, refusing and mocking this whole idea of illegality. I found out later that was the work of Josh and Troy, somewhere behind the Beast, lost in the sea. I was told later on that some lady asked to hit the joint and her kids asked after she turned away ‘Did you just give our mom pot? She won’t even let us smoke it!’
A note to all of those blue haired ladies - It was nothing like the Beast that was to rape me in the floor, to grope me while I was jumping, single me out as one of many in the sea. One body offered up to the gods of the Beast riding to the front knocked the glasses from my face while the rock raged on. The Beast stopped with its million cell phones, found my glasses, put them back on my face, and turned back to its thrashing with all the fury.
‘What can you do?’ I yelled at a fellow glasses wearer and Led Zepplin fan to my right. ‘There’s nothing you can do!’ I asked him what his name was (I’ve forgotten since now), telling him I was Heidi from the radio station. ‘You’re shitting me?’ he yells back. I show him my driver’s license brought for beer that I never bought, his eyes get all wide, and he nudges his friend beside him.
‘Dude! It’s the girl who took her clothes off for backstage passes!’
‘Are you serious?’ his friend yells back at him, his eyes wide too, like I’m some sort of famous person. The music began again and all conversation was lost.
Someone’s tennis shoe graces my face in their joy of getting moved along and I tasted dirt from the world on accident. It tastes like that American Dream that we’ve all lost, being told we’re all supposed to work hard for nothing and buy things we don’t need. The American Dream is not lost! Do not fear! It’s alive and well with the beast, hidden from view, because if The Man knew it was still alive he’d take it all away. They made everyone pay for the Living Dream but we took it back from them in the sea, drowned the greed and lust and folly of the radio, the Beast awakened. All the money in the world can’t buy the joy drenched in monsoon heat.
The moshers push and the only person who looked upset was Mr. Hagar Fan, caught in the grips of the Beast. He was caught amidst youth, hungry for the recovery of all The Man took away from us before we were born.
The house lights come up after the second encore and the beast disperses. I bum a cigarette off of the fellow with glasses from earlier as a bouncer the size of a fridge announces it’s time to get out of the venue, last call, you don‘t have to go home but you can‘t stay here. The sea pours out onto the steps, out into the night, breathing the cool air of the stars, looking for their cars and a pretty girl to go home with.
My posse goes in search of the tour bus to try and achieve one goal of the evening.