9.22.02
I finally have something to be indignant about. I’ve been making stuff up for the last few months, and using up my righteous indignation on things like the new leadership of The Match or my parents, but now I actually have a channel for that energy.
A few weeks ago, John Heiner’s band, Kidnapped Occasionally, won a battle of the bands at a local radio station. This was Very Cool, because the winner would be the one with the loudest crowd. So when they called their name, everyone rushed the stage screaming. Good times. The winner of that Battle got to open for Hoobstank at the Hampton Coliseum last night, and to be in another Battle of the Bands with other area groups. The winner of that noise contest would get $1000, time in a professional recording studio, and MTV exposure. A dream for any aspiring band. So of course, when we heard they were going and needed crowd support, we started talking it up around school, trying to get everyone we knew to go.
In the end, it was me, Elissa, Noah, Reid, Reid’s brother David, Becca, Phil, Jobes, Seg, John’s girlfriend Sarah, Cush, Julie, Mark, a pair of Julie’s friends, and Jordan. We met up with a guy named Luke and a friend of his whose name I missed – Elissa knew them through Aaron from Peak. Small world. So anyway, we all got there about an hour after the door opened, and were assaulted by a crowd of pretty nasty Ashanti fans. Until I got there and saw the posters, I hadn’t the foggiest idea who Ashanti was. For those of you who are as clueless as me, she’s ‘the princess of hip-hop’ or something like that. Also playing was Fat Joe, another hip-hop icon. And Hoobastank, I suppose, swings from rock to hip-hop on occasion…although I was always under the impression that they were more rockable than not. But whatever. The point is that the crowd that was drawn – the hip-hop-lovin’ group – was not exactly what we expected…and us punk kids with spiked hair and Kidnapped Occasionally patches pinned to our shirts and plaid pants…we stuck out a bit.
But we weren’t really that uptight about anything until we got into the pit and scouted out for Becca and her group. (I was with Jordan, Elissa, Noah, David, and Reid.) We saw them; they were way up front. So we decided to try and get up to where they were. Nothing had started yet, so we assumed the crowd would be ok with our forward movement. Not so. In fact, we hadn’t gotten more than two or three people deep when they started screaming obscenities at us. “Fuck no, you ain’t getting’ in there, motherfuckers,” was one of my favorites. Or the “Hell no, my baby can’t see!” Well, ma’am, perhaps this wasn’t the best place to bring your seven-year old. But whatever. Jordan and Luke got a lot of crap because they’re tall; people kept telling them to move over…where they blocked someone else’s view. The crowd was hostile even before the show started. And we’re a group of sheltered private-school kids…we were surrounded and scared for our lives.
At one point, Noah and Reid and David were a bit ahead of us, so we decided to try and get to them. It was a more-or-less lateral move, so we figured no one would mind. Again, not so. Jordan literally wasn’t allowed in because he was tall, and we ended up in the midst of lots of angry-ish people waving Ashanti posters and giving us nasty looks and talking – very loudly – about how none of us had said ‘excuse me’ (we had; they were too busy bitching at us to hear) or how we had no right to be here. Well, dear, I paid my $10, same as you, and all I wanted to do was yell for my friends and get the hell away.
So the first group wasn’t really a group so much as a hip-hop dance troupe that jumped around – but not really, because the DJ sucked. Then another group came out and did the same thing. Then a third group came out, this one was one of the competitors. They played a background beat while a girl in not-a-lot of clothing got up and rapped (I was told it was a cover song – I had no idea) and two guys behind her danced with a towel. That wasn’t music. And I’m not saying rap isn’t music; I’m simply saying that Tru wasn’t. It was a dance routine with a very vocal girl and a very packaged background mix.
Next up was Kidnapped Occasionally. They got up there and played the best I’ve seen them ever play. The two songs were original, and the four of them looked like they belonged up there. It was really cool to see John’s spiky self up on the screens while he sang…they’re all very talented people, and they were far better, in my opinion, than the other group.
When they came on, our group went nuts. We were screaming, jumping up and down with the music, having fun. It’s what you do at a show; enjoy the music, sing along when you know the words, and enjoy yourself. The people around us were pissed, though; some were shoving us back, others were yelling at us to ‘sit the fuck down’ and the like. I ignored them. The crowd didn’t respond to the band nearly as well as we did; they were throwing things, flinging rubber bands, and just being dicks. At one point, a guy started to fling one such band at the stage, and Elissa put her hand in front of him to stop him. His girlfriend, very inebriated, flipped out and started screaming at Elissa. Reid stepped in front of her to protect her, and her boyfriend hauled off and punched him in the face. He staggered backward into me – the first time I noticed them – and suddenly everyone was attacking everyone else. The woman was screaming obscenities at Reid’s 14-year-old little brother, who looked half-shocked and two-thirds pissed. Luke was trying to jump on whoever he could, and Elissa looked about to bite someone herself. Noah and I were holding people back, and the woman’s friends (or maybe random people in the crowd – I have no idea) were holding them off. Security got there surprisingly fast, and pulled her away. She screamed the whole way out of the pit. For some odd reason, they grabbed Noah too, and dragged him off. Noah, the pacifist, hadn’t been doing anything wrong; his hands were only up to restrain people from clawing each other’s eyes out.
So after the fight, I about lost it. I’d missed the last two-thirds of Kidnapped Occasionally’s second song, and they were off. Next up was some group that also didn’t play their own songs, but I missed it because I had to get out of there. Emotions always run high at a concert, and when someone around you snaps, it’s stressful. I made sure Reid was ok, and got out of there. I found Jordan somewhere behind me, and we spent the next little bit trying to rescue Noah. We never found him, but we did find the other half of our group – Seg and Sarah and Becca and Phil and Cush. At first, they wouldn’t look at me; they were wrapped up in something else. After a bit, though, we regrouped. Apparently Becca had almost been attacked, and might have been seriously hurt if Phil hadn’t blocked her. Cush was bitched out for ‘spitting on’ someone, which he didn’t. He also got his wallet stolen. We were all extremely shaken up…made more so by the fact that the first group – the rap group – had the loudest crowd and so won the competition.
And that’s what I’m pissed about. Not that ydoyouthink.com put two totally different groups of people into one auditorium, basically begging for riots…but that they let the contest be decided by an audience that was clearly going to be skewed towards the rap group. The other two groups were rock; they had nothing in common with the headlining bands. Kidnapped Occasionally – far and away the most (if not only) talented group there – got screwed because they weren’t opening for the right kind of crowd.
It could also have something to do with the fact that their fans, (us), showed up in patches and were blamed for the fight, but that’s just bullshit. Whatever happened to merit?
Anyway, that was how my evening went. I was stressed out to the point of tears when my good friend had been punched in the face, his little brother had been cussed out for no good reason, and a third friend of mine was dragged off – and we couldn’t find him – unfairly. And then John’s band lost to a group that was more about show than talent…and we all know how much I hate those kinds of groups.
So Jordan and I wandered around for a bit and eventually we were all reunited. I didn’t want to stay…to the contrary, I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. So we did. Reid and David got picked up, but Noah and Jobes and Elissa and Jordan and I went to the beach. We were only a half hour from there, and it wasn’t even nine by the time we were too mentally exhausted to want to stay. Becca and Cush and Phil stayed…I dunno why…and we headed out to the ocean. Jordan and I swam for a bit, which was probably illegal, but oh well. We walked along the boardwalk for a bit, got ice cream, and then headed back to Richmond. I still can’t believe my parents let me drive – they almost didn’t – but now I think they’ll trust me a bit more, which means maybe road trips, which is rather exciting.
And that’s how I spent my weekend. Well, not really. That’s how I spent the hours from four until one yesterday. It seemed like lots longer. And what have I been up to other than that? Ehh, school, mainly. The last time I updated was before school started, I know, so consider this your first update of the 2002-2003 school year. I need to cover my classes, senior privileges, speeches, the Match, and how I really miss the people from the summer. Of the three options I had for yesterday – Jimmy Eat World show, Gauleyfest, or this concert – I certainly picked the worst option. Not that I would have been allowed to go to Gauleyfest, but it sounded like it was worlds of fun. Maybe next year…
One thing that I will add is how being a senior means I have free periods, which means that when my schedule falls out right, I can get out of school a few hours early. For example, every Regular Wednesday, I’m done after 1:45, and on Alternate Tuesdays, I’m done at 12:55. Life’s grand, and I’ve been taking advantage of that to have lunch out on those days. Two weeks ago it was with Ned and Trip, and last week just Trip…but I love hanging out with ‘em, and it’s lovely to hang out and shoot the breeze and pretend like I don’t really have school work to do.
Kind of like I’m doing now. I know I have more to write about, but the Bio shit and the English paper come first…I’ll add more later, I promise. When ‘later’ is…well, we’ll just have to see.