I have one crazy story after another to tell after this weekend.
By some weird walk of faith I found myself walking out on stage at the Roxy concert arena Friday night.
I need concerts in my life. I need to experience being in a large crowd of moshing out of control people on a regular basis or else I start having pent up aggression. So it’s been kind of a while since I went surfing. It may have been since NIN in May, even. I’ve been to other shows since then like Riverbend and Destiny’s Child and Pride concerts that I slept through but none of them have that aggressive feel that I get hungry for sometimes.
So I was checking to see what kind of shows were coming to ATL in the near future and I saw that Cracker was going to be playing the Roxy this past Friday. It was 20 bucks. I knew one song of theirs (Low) and that song was kind of hard and STP-like. The Roxy’s a good moshing arena. I thought, what the hell this’ll be cool, so I bought myself a ticket. The show was at 8:00 on Friday night but there were like three bands that were opening for them cause it was a festival kind of thing so I knew it’d be ok if I was late.
Friday night comes but I get all caught up hanging out with my neighbors in the courtyard of our complex cause we’re all having drinks together. Nine o’clock passes. Ten o’clock passes and I start to realize, hell, I need to get out of here or else I’m going to miss the whole damn thing and I’ve already bought my ticket. I didn’t mind missing the opening bands but I wanted to be there for the end if nothing else.
Despite some car problems I still manage to make it to the concert hall and after arguing with a parking attendant that won’t let me haggle him down from $10 I end up parking all the way behind the Roxy for a guy who let me have it for 7 bucks.
I’m walking around from the backside of the building and I can hear the band playing inside muffled by the brick walls. I see a door on the backside with some guys blocking it who are chilling and hanging out. They are definitely of the taller, bigger, body guard variety.
I go up to them and I say,
Me: Can I get in through this door by chance?
*the body guard guy looks me up and down and says*
Guy: Why, I think you can go anywhere you want to, little lady. (and he smiles at me kind of slyly)
I was totally dressed out that night on top of it. I was wearing a tight red tank top, jeans, red Doc Martins, red eye shadow and curly hair.
He asked me if I had a pass. I said yeah and started reaching for my back pocket to get my ticketmaster printout ticket but the guy was like ok sure if you have a pass then we’ll just let you through and he didn’t look at my ticket.
Yeah. So it turns out he was talking about a backstage pass and I was talking about my print-off ticket.
He let me by into the little back door of the building and I can hear him say, “Just go on up,” from behind me as I’m going in.
I look in front of me. To my left and down is a the sound board guy and all of his equipment and I start to feel like shit, I’m not supposed to be here. But then I see a small narrow staircase to my right that goes up.
"Just go on up" I can hear echoing in my head and I’m late as hell and missing the concert so I hurry up the stairs.
...and I run directly out on stage with Cracker playing their hearts out for the audience.
I’m kind of deer-in-headlights at this point. I start dancing a little.
The band is working the crowd on the edge of the stage so they don’t really see me but the drummer totally sees me walk out and he just kind of looks at me curiously and gives me a chin-up nod of acknowledgment while he’s drumming. A roadie walked by, looked at me and I thought I was about to be caught, and he either must have thought I was supposed to be there or he didn’t care, one. There was sound guy #2 who could see me from behind the curtains on the right side of the stage but he didn’t seem to give a shit. There were no security guards or anything.
I hid in this tiny little corner and my mind is going full speed. I’m dancing, trying to look like I’m just a normal chick who is supposed to be there having a good time ON THE STAGE WITH THE BAND but I knew that the show would be over in 20 minutes or less and I had from now until then to figure out what in the hell I plan on doing when the band comes up to me when their set’s finished.
The drummer keeps looking at me kind of smiling but kind of inquisitively and I’m wondering who does he think I am? Maybe he thinks I’m the sound guy’s girlfriend, or something like that. Then I have a vision from the movie “Almost Famous” and of Kate Hudson telling everyone proudly that she’s a Band-Aid and they follow bands around tour sneaking backstage to be “at their service” and to “support” the musicians they love. I think this guy thinks I’m a band-aid. He must think I’m some over crazed fan who snuck backstage for a glimpse at the band and now he keeps eyeing me. They’re kind of a wash-up band now but I’m sure back in their hay-day they had all kinds of female stalkers so they probably know how it goes.
Shit.
I need to get out of here. I’m alone in my little corner and I think that there must be a crowd of backstage pass people around here somewhere and I just haven’t found them yet. Oh, here’s a door right behind me! Holy shit that’s their dressing room. Yeeeeah, don’t need to go in there.
I’m not a band-aid or an over-crazed fan but maybe I could fake it and have a drink with them in their dressing room afterwards and it would be a cool story so long as I could escape very very quickly.
But who am I kidding? I know absolutely shit about this band. What if they start asking me questions?
Band: Sure I’ll sign your ticket for you pretty girl! What’s your favorite album?
Me: Uh… all of them. *ahem*
Band: But we only have one album.
Me: Uh…. well, uh. That’s my favorite one. Umhum. *nodding*
Band: Well, what’s your favorite song?
Me: Uh… the only popular single you’ve ever had? ….. I’m really hardcore into your music. Yep. Sure am.
That conversation was destined to be the biggest train wreck ever. I don’t even know the band members names.
I hear the opening chords for the song "Low" and my mouth starts to dry because I know this is probably the last song of their set. And sure enough it is. The crowd is going crazy. The band exits stage left, exactly where I am and they leave down the same staircase that I came up. It’s an extremely tight corner so they’re all like, “Excuse me, pardon me” brushing all up in my business trying to get to the stairwell. And no one seems to be second guessing why I’m there. They all just look at me, smile and make their way by.
WHY couldn't I be able to brush my chest against all the members of Pearl Jam, or someone else who's actually really cool?
They come back upstairs for their encore. The drummer smiles at me as he passes and that kind of freaked me out. After they got back to their instruments I went down the stairs, past the stage left sound guy and all his equipment, weave my way through a hallway and a maze of black curtains and make my way out front to where the real audience was. It was the last few seconds of their last encore song and I headed straight for the front door and went back to my car.
I like having stories about sneaking out of my seats and getting closer to the band then I was supposed to but I think this takes the cake.
That night could have been so cool if only it had happened to be a bad that I actually cared about.
I need concerts in my life. I need to experience being in a large crowd of moshing out of control people on a regular basis or else I start having pent up aggression. So it’s been kind of a while since I went surfing. It may have been since NIN in May, even. I’ve been to other shows since then like Riverbend and Destiny’s Child and Pride concerts that I slept through but none of them have that aggressive feel that I get hungry for sometimes.
So I was checking to see what kind of shows were coming to ATL in the near future and I saw that Cracker was going to be playing the Roxy this past Friday. It was 20 bucks. I knew one song of theirs (Low) and that song was kind of hard and STP-like. The Roxy’s a good moshing arena. I thought, what the hell this’ll be cool, so I bought myself a ticket. The show was at 8:00 on Friday night but there were like three bands that were opening for them cause it was a festival kind of thing so I knew it’d be ok if I was late.
Friday night comes but I get all caught up hanging out with my neighbors in the courtyard of our complex cause we’re all having drinks together. Nine o’clock passes. Ten o’clock passes and I start to realize, hell, I need to get out of here or else I’m going to miss the whole damn thing and I’ve already bought my ticket. I didn’t mind missing the opening bands but I wanted to be there for the end if nothing else.
Despite some car problems I still manage to make it to the concert hall and after arguing with a parking attendant that won’t let me haggle him down from $10 I end up parking all the way behind the Roxy for a guy who let me have it for 7 bucks.
I’m walking around from the backside of the building and I can hear the band playing inside muffled by the brick walls. I see a door on the backside with some guys blocking it who are chilling and hanging out. They are definitely of the taller, bigger, body guard variety.
I go up to them and I say,
Me: Can I get in through this door by chance?
*the body guard guy looks me up and down and says*
Guy: Why, I think you can go anywhere you want to, little lady. (and he smiles at me kind of slyly)
I was totally dressed out that night on top of it. I was wearing a tight red tank top, jeans, red Doc Martins, red eye shadow and curly hair.
He asked me if I had a pass. I said yeah and started reaching for my back pocket to get my ticketmaster printout ticket but the guy was like ok sure if you have a pass then we’ll just let you through and he didn’t look at my ticket.
Yeah. So it turns out he was talking about a backstage pass and I was talking about my print-off ticket.
He let me by into the little back door of the building and I can hear him say, “Just go on up,” from behind me as I’m going in.
I look in front of me. To my left and down is a the sound board guy and all of his equipment and I start to feel like shit, I’m not supposed to be here. But then I see a small narrow staircase to my right that goes up.
"Just go on up" I can hear echoing in my head and I’m late as hell and missing the concert so I hurry up the stairs.
...and I run directly out on stage with Cracker playing their hearts out for the audience.
I’m kind of deer-in-headlights at this point. I start dancing a little.
The band is working the crowd on the edge of the stage so they don’t really see me but the drummer totally sees me walk out and he just kind of looks at me curiously and gives me a chin-up nod of acknowledgment while he’s drumming. A roadie walked by, looked at me and I thought I was about to be caught, and he either must have thought I was supposed to be there or he didn’t care, one. There was sound guy #2 who could see me from behind the curtains on the right side of the stage but he didn’t seem to give a shit. There were no security guards or anything.
I hid in this tiny little corner and my mind is going full speed. I’m dancing, trying to look like I’m just a normal chick who is supposed to be there having a good time ON THE STAGE WITH THE BAND but I knew that the show would be over in 20 minutes or less and I had from now until then to figure out what in the hell I plan on doing when the band comes up to me when their set’s finished.
The drummer keeps looking at me kind of smiling but kind of inquisitively and I’m wondering who does he think I am? Maybe he thinks I’m the sound guy’s girlfriend, or something like that. Then I have a vision from the movie “Almost Famous” and of Kate Hudson telling everyone proudly that she’s a Band-Aid and they follow bands around tour sneaking backstage to be “at their service” and to “support” the musicians they love. I think this guy thinks I’m a band-aid. He must think I’m some over crazed fan who snuck backstage for a glimpse at the band and now he keeps eyeing me. They’re kind of a wash-up band now but I’m sure back in their hay-day they had all kinds of female stalkers so they probably know how it goes.
Shit.
I need to get out of here. I’m alone in my little corner and I think that there must be a crowd of backstage pass people around here somewhere and I just haven’t found them yet. Oh, here’s a door right behind me! Holy shit that’s their dressing room. Yeeeeah, don’t need to go in there.
I’m not a band-aid or an over-crazed fan but maybe I could fake it and have a drink with them in their dressing room afterwards and it would be a cool story so long as I could escape very very quickly.
But who am I kidding? I know absolutely shit about this band. What if they start asking me questions?
Band: Sure I’ll sign your ticket for you pretty girl! What’s your favorite album?
Me: Uh… all of them. *ahem*
Band: But we only have one album.
Me: Uh…. well, uh. That’s my favorite one. Umhum. *nodding*
Band: Well, what’s your favorite song?
Me: Uh… the only popular single you’ve ever had? ….. I’m really hardcore into your music. Yep. Sure am.
That conversation was destined to be the biggest train wreck ever. I don’t even know the band members names.
I hear the opening chords for the song "Low" and my mouth starts to dry because I know this is probably the last song of their set. And sure enough it is. The crowd is going crazy. The band exits stage left, exactly where I am and they leave down the same staircase that I came up. It’s an extremely tight corner so they’re all like, “Excuse me, pardon me” brushing all up in my business trying to get to the stairwell. And no one seems to be second guessing why I’m there. They all just look at me, smile and make their way by.
WHY couldn't I be able to brush my chest against all the members of Pearl Jam, or someone else who's actually really cool?
They come back upstairs for their encore. The drummer smiles at me as he passes and that kind of freaked me out. After they got back to their instruments I went down the stairs, past the stage left sound guy and all his equipment, weave my way through a hallway and a maze of black curtains and make my way out front to where the real audience was. It was the last few seconds of their last encore song and I headed straight for the front door and went back to my car.
I like having stories about sneaking out of my seats and getting closer to the band then I was supposed to but I think this takes the cake.
That night could have been so cool if only it had happened to be a bad that I actually cared about.