The Concert Horror
A topic came up a few days ago and some of the good folks at DB Geek started thinking about what was their worst concert experience. Usually when things like this get started between guys it ends up being a contest of one upsmanship. If it rained on you, then your buddy walked up hill through driving snow both ways to get to the show. If you got beer spilled on you by some random girl, he got the clap from some chick in a Porto potty. You see where this is going. Amongst men, reveling in misery is a badge of honor. So into this we now delve.
Everyone has a story of some lame show where the band phoned it in or was just too drunk to function. We’ve all been to shows where we left regretting blowing perfectly good money on the fiasco we’d just endured.
Sometimes it comes from the exhaustion of an overly strenuous tour on the musicians, their lack of professionalism, the sad excuse for a venue picked by a road manager that would soon be looking for a new job or from the a-hole you went to the show with. Whatever it is, it at least makes for a good story afterward.
My personal horror story involves a young boy whose older sister had told him she was taking him to see AC/DC. She was taking him because, being eight years older, she was allowed to go to concerts by their parents but they required her to take her little brother with the idea that dragging a seven year old along would curtail any overzealous partying on her part. Being the “good” sister she was, she had come up with the plan of telling their parents they were going to see Tina Turner. This was supposedly the cover story because it sounded nice and tame and would most likely not draw any major objections.
And yes, that little boy was me and no, I never made it to see AC/DC.
Apparently my sister really did want to see Tina Turner but knew there was no way I’d go to the concert which meant she wouldn’t be allowed to go. So she did what she had to do to convince an innocent seven year old who’d recently discovered AC/DC through this very same sister, she lied. We left home in with me in high hopes of actually getting to see a band I’d only ever heard on tape(for you younger listeners, Google “cassette”). This was to be the moment of my initiation into rockdom.
We left home bound for the Municipal Auditorium of Nashville, one of the absolute worst places in the world to see a show. But never the less, it has seen some very epic concerts over its lifetime, which from the inside appears to be since the time of the dinosaurs. Not knowing any better, I trusted that her friend who was driving was going directly to the Municipal. I’d only been there a few times before for the circus and other such child friendly events, but when we pulled up I knew it didn’t look the same. Oh well, I was too psyched to give it full consideration and being seven, what the hell did I know anyway.
Well, in the next two hours I would learn a lot. I would learn first to never trust anyone with crappy taste in music. Second, I would learn that while Tina Turner may have her positive side, she royally sucks as a substitute for Brian Johnson. On a side note I also learned that, even to this day, the song Private Dancer will never leave your head once you hear it live and it is most likely on the permanent playlist in Hell.
Though I’ve had rain, snow, overly friendly drunks and other such catastrophic events at concerts, this is my personal concert horror story. Never has someone left a show more dejected than I did at seven years old after expecting AC/DC and instead getting a seemingly endless torture of Tina Turner. I still can’t watch Mad Max without cringing. Thanks sis.
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1 comment:
my worst concert experiance was at a kiss concert, but it wasn't kiss, it was w.a.s.p. it was in '85, kiss' animalize tour. it was kiss' first time playing in sacramento and for some reason they were booked into the memorial auditorium downtown. the venue was to small (2,500 to 3,000 people), the line to get in was around the building,there were bootleggers selling stuff, people trying to buy whoever would sell them their ticket, offers of $50+ for a $15 ticket. the seating was open floored, no seats, you could get as close as you could up front. the barrier in front of the stage was knocked over long before the concert started. people were everywhere. it came time for the show to start and nothing happened, about 10 minuets later some guy came out and said if people didn't move back from the stage so the barriers could be put up the concert wouldn't start, no one moved and there were loud boos. the guy leaves. 5 mins. later he comes out and says unless people move back w.a.s.p. refuses to come out, more boos. soon gene and paul come out, declare everyone nuts and say fuck wasp they will come out now if wasp won't. the crowd went nuts. soon wasp came out to resounding boos. during their show their guitarists would lean over the stage and people would put outtheir hands to get picks off thier guitars and they would kick or swat their hands away( later when kiss came out paul, gene, and bruce would lean over letting people take picks, gene even let people touch his out streached tounge). wasps' album was called RAW MEAT, and at one point during the show BLACKIEE LAWLESS was trying to stir up the crowd, talking about diffrent stuff, then from a box he was throwing out real raw steak meat to the crowd. it was so funny, but people were throwing it back at him. wasp didn't play long because they were constantly being booed off the stage. kiss came out and it was an awsome show. one funny thing during the kiss part, at the end kiss played rock 'n' roll all nite, half way through gene stops playing,he's looking to his right, he moves over to paul who looks over and stops playing too, he moves over to bruce-same thing, soon eric carr is the only one playing. gene tells the crowd to look at the upper balcony, some girl up there, 10 feet way from him the way the balcony was, had pulled up her shirt and was flashing him. when he pointed it out to EVERYONE she pulled down her shirt and quickly left that area. kiss continued with the song without missing a beat. p.s. the accustics there were terriable, the building was a long oval and the reverb from the music was bad. that's it, sorry it was so long, proabably one of those things you had to be there for.
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