Better than Kool-Aid, sweet my buttercup, baby's got a pretty face...
I made it back. And in one piece, even! Time to recap the trip to X-FEST...
Well, I just stayed at Chuck's Friday night, since I thought it was pointless to drive back home for the night, then drive back out there tomorrow night to meet up. I got a really good night of sleep. Best one I've had in a while, as a matter of fact. Got up around 11 Saturday morning. I watched college football for most of the day, or at least listened to it, and read about half of a book. I tried to catch a little nap before it was time to go, but that wasn't hap'nin', so I went to Wal-Mart for some stuff to make a big thermos of hot chocolate to help keep me awake. Lij got there around maybe 10:30 or so and started doing homework. It really made me gald that I don't have to mess with that garbage anymore, seeing him struggle some like that. We met Flop around 1:15 at Lowe's and moved out from there.
Damn Google Maps directions (Lij got the directions, for the record, NOT I)... I thought we needed to take the same road that Goo and I took to Indianapolis to get to the interstate (and I was right), but stupid-ass Google Maps said take a right instead of a left. Against my better judgement, I took the right. And it led us into this damn shithole ghosttown in Kentucky. I was like "Oooooookay... Most of the horror movies I've seen start a lot like this. A group of people getting lost in a town that no one knows about, and they never leave. Just great. Good job, Lij... Told ya you shoulda used Mapquest!!! Damn!" After like 5 minutes of driving around, Lij realized we were in Whitesburg... hahaha! Eventually, I went with my gut, we went back and took the left turn I knew we should've and we were on our way.... Till I went to sleep. No, not behind the wheel lol. I got us on I-75 (according to those DAMN GOOGLE MAP DIRECTIONS! GEEZ!), and I pulled over to let Flop drive for a while and so I could catch some sleep. Well, I passed out pretty fast, and woke up when we came to a stop. It was at a little gas station. IN LOUISVILLE!!! LOST IN LOUISVILLE AGAIN! Remember last time I was around Louisville, and specifically a gas station there?!?! I was lucky not to get gunned down by the gang of 9 with mesh shorts down to their damn knees!!! This was NOT the place I wanted to be haha. I asked what the hell was going on, and they tell me we're lost. Again. They went in to get directions (yes, I told them to lock me in lol), came back, and we were on our way again. Looking at the maps a day later (these are Google Maps, mind you haha), if you took the point where we should've turned, the point where we turned back to the direction we should've been going to begin with, and the point where we finally got back on 75, it was a nice, BIG triangle lol. Seeing as how things were back under control, I went back to sleep. I woke up when we came to a stop, yet again. I look up, and there's so much damn fog that I swear up and down we're in Silent Hill. You couldn't see more than 30 yards ahead. I took over driving again here at the rest area to get us into Dayton. Also got gas at the next exit here for TWO BUCKS! YES!!!
Maybe 20 minutes later, we arrived in Dayton. Didn't have trouble finding the Montgomery County Fairgrounds at all. It was 8:30 when we got there, and the show started at 12. So we had a nice little wait. We were way up there in line though, maybe 40 yards from the front. And that's pretty damn close when you consider that there was 20,000 people there when the show started (Note: people were STILL coming in when we left. It had to end up around at LEAST 30,000 strong).
Sidetrack: It was a sight to see, the three of us there in line with everyone else. It was like one of those things where you see products coming out on a conveyor belt, all identical. Then, the change all of a sudden to something completely different lol. There was all these people with giant spikes on their head from using way too much hair gel, countless piercings and tattoos, and LOADS of black. Then there was us. I was actually wearing what I'm wearing in that putt-putt picture over there except with black boots, so I was okay. Flop was about the same. But Lij? lol... He had on white shoes, white shorts, and a nice little orange checkerboard short-sleeve button up... hahaha! Stevie Wonder would've been able to pick that dude out of the crowd on this day.
Back on track... We spent our free time in different ways. Lij slept on the concrete sidewalk, I put grass in his shoes and socks while he was alseep, and Flop spent most of it being pissed at these jiffy-lubed wanna-be-punks behind us who whouldn't just shut up for 5 seconds. They opened the gates at 11. The set up was like this: At the two ends of the grounds, probably 200 yards long, was a stage. Each band played a 40-minute set, and then there were 5 minutes for the crowd to get down to the other end where the other band would start playing. We fiddle-farted around the fairground till about 30 minutes before the first band, 18 Visions, came on. When they started, so did the flashing, the weed smoking, and the condom balloons in the air haha. I thought they put on a pretty good show, they rocked the yard pretty damn hard. Next was Black Stone Cherry. They were pretty generic. Nothing special. Damone was after that. I thought they were pretty good as well. The lead guitarist really had some charisma. Bob would've loved his pink guitar. Let's face it: If you're gonna have a pink guitar, you better be able to blast through the top of the charisma meter lol. We skipped Hurt, because we just didn't care about them and wanted something to eat and somewhere to sit lol. Buckcherry started signing autographs at like 2:50, but damn, the line was soooo long, I'd have never gotten there. I already have an autograph anyway though... I would've liked to talk to them some though. Oh well! Another day maybe. We listened to Bullet for my Valentine, who sounded probably the best of the bands so far, but skipped Hinder. I would've liked to have saw Hinder, but Buckcherry was immediately after them, and I was gonna get a damn good spot for this...
At 4, it was time... We fought our way up to the 4th row back. Awesome spot and I got some hellacious pictures with my phone (well, hellaciously close haha not necessarily hellaciously crisp because it's a phone, for cryin' out loud). My heart was about to pound out of my chest with excitement. And finally the X-FEST guys came out and introduced them. And it was all on from there baby!!! I sang every damn word of the set, which was (in no particular order):
So Far
Next To You
Everything
Crazy Bitch
Broken Glass
Ridin'
Porno Star
Fall
Lit Up
I was jumping and singing with every ounce of stength in me, while passing along (and sometimes getting bashed in the head by... lol) the body surfers. About halfway through the set, these two chicks started all-out brawling. Didn't matter to me, as long as they didn't obstruct my view haha! They were both removed shortly after lol. During "Lit Up", Josh Todd started chanting CO! CAINE! CO! CAINE! and of course everyone followed. I thought my voice was gonna give out, but didn't care, I was gonna milk this for all it was worth haha. Just imagine around 25,000 die-hard fans screaming and jumping in unison for this one time, each one as into it as the next... Awesome moment, I just wish I could have it on tape somewhere to put in a safe to keep forever.
On that note, we were on such a high that we didnt' care about the other 3 bands left to go (Three Days Grace, Avenged Sevenfold, and Staind), so we decided to leave on that high note. That evening had to be the greatest 40 minutes of my life so far. It was the most adrenaline-injected feeling I've ever had, I got to see my favorite band of the last 8 years, and iit was something I wanted to do before I die. This was a day I'll absolutely never forget. Never. I can't even get the smile off my face now, just from recalling it. What as awesome memory this will always be...
Well, I just stayed at Chuck's Friday night, since I thought it was pointless to drive back home for the night, then drive back out there tomorrow night to meet up. I got a really good night of sleep. Best one I've had in a while, as a matter of fact. Got up around 11 Saturday morning. I watched college football for most of the day, or at least listened to it, and read about half of a book. I tried to catch a little nap before it was time to go, but that wasn't hap'nin', so I went to Wal-Mart for some stuff to make a big thermos of hot chocolate to help keep me awake. Lij got there around maybe 10:30 or so and started doing homework. It really made me gald that I don't have to mess with that garbage anymore, seeing him struggle some like that. We met Flop around 1:15 at Lowe's and moved out from there.
Damn Google Maps directions (Lij got the directions, for the record, NOT I)... I thought we needed to take the same road that Goo and I took to Indianapolis to get to the interstate (and I was right), but stupid-ass Google Maps said take a right instead of a left. Against my better judgement, I took the right. And it led us into this damn shithole ghosttown in Kentucky. I was like "Oooooookay... Most of the horror movies I've seen start a lot like this. A group of people getting lost in a town that no one knows about, and they never leave. Just great. Good job, Lij... Told ya you shoulda used Mapquest!!! Damn!" After like 5 minutes of driving around, Lij realized we were in Whitesburg... hahaha! Eventually, I went with my gut, we went back and took the left turn I knew we should've and we were on our way.... Till I went to sleep. No, not behind the wheel lol. I got us on I-75 (according to those DAMN GOOGLE MAP DIRECTIONS! GEEZ!), and I pulled over to let Flop drive for a while and so I could catch some sleep. Well, I passed out pretty fast, and woke up when we came to a stop. It was at a little gas station. IN LOUISVILLE!!! LOST IN LOUISVILLE AGAIN! Remember last time I was around Louisville, and specifically a gas station there?!?! I was lucky not to get gunned down by the gang of 9 with mesh shorts down to their damn knees!!! This was NOT the place I wanted to be haha. I asked what the hell was going on, and they tell me we're lost. Again. They went in to get directions (yes, I told them to lock me in lol), came back, and we were on our way again. Looking at the maps a day later (these are Google Maps, mind you haha), if you took the point where we should've turned, the point where we turned back to the direction we should've been going to begin with, and the point where we finally got back on 75, it was a nice, BIG triangle lol. Seeing as how things were back under control, I went back to sleep. I woke up when we came to a stop, yet again. I look up, and there's so much damn fog that I swear up and down we're in Silent Hill. You couldn't see more than 30 yards ahead. I took over driving again here at the rest area to get us into Dayton. Also got gas at the next exit here for TWO BUCKS! YES!!!
Maybe 20 minutes later, we arrived in Dayton. Didn't have trouble finding the Montgomery County Fairgrounds at all. It was 8:30 when we got there, and the show started at 12. So we had a nice little wait. We were way up there in line though, maybe 40 yards from the front. And that's pretty damn close when you consider that there was 20,000 people there when the show started (Note: people were STILL coming in when we left. It had to end up around at LEAST 30,000 strong).
Sidetrack: It was a sight to see, the three of us there in line with everyone else. It was like one of those things where you see products coming out on a conveyor belt, all identical. Then, the change all of a sudden to something completely different lol. There was all these people with giant spikes on their head from using way too much hair gel, countless piercings and tattoos, and LOADS of black. Then there was us. I was actually wearing what I'm wearing in that putt-putt picture over there except with black boots, so I was okay. Flop was about the same. But Lij? lol... He had on white shoes, white shorts, and a nice little orange checkerboard short-sleeve button up... hahaha! Stevie Wonder would've been able to pick that dude out of the crowd on this day.
Back on track... We spent our free time in different ways. Lij slept on the concrete sidewalk, I put grass in his shoes and socks while he was alseep, and Flop spent most of it being pissed at these jiffy-lubed wanna-be-punks behind us who whouldn't just shut up for 5 seconds. They opened the gates at 11. The set up was like this: At the two ends of the grounds, probably 200 yards long, was a stage. Each band played a 40-minute set, and then there were 5 minutes for the crowd to get down to the other end where the other band would start playing. We fiddle-farted around the fairground till about 30 minutes before the first band, 18 Visions, came on. When they started, so did the flashing, the weed smoking, and the condom balloons in the air haha. I thought they put on a pretty good show, they rocked the yard pretty damn hard. Next was Black Stone Cherry. They were pretty generic. Nothing special. Damone was after that. I thought they were pretty good as well. The lead guitarist really had some charisma. Bob would've loved his pink guitar. Let's face it: If you're gonna have a pink guitar, you better be able to blast through the top of the charisma meter lol. We skipped Hurt, because we just didn't care about them and wanted something to eat and somewhere to sit lol. Buckcherry started signing autographs at like 2:50, but damn, the line was soooo long, I'd have never gotten there. I already have an autograph anyway though... I would've liked to talk to them some though. Oh well! Another day maybe. We listened to Bullet for my Valentine, who sounded probably the best of the bands so far, but skipped Hinder. I would've liked to have saw Hinder, but Buckcherry was immediately after them, and I was gonna get a damn good spot for this...
At 4, it was time... We fought our way up to the 4th row back. Awesome spot and I got some hellacious pictures with my phone (well, hellaciously close haha not necessarily hellaciously crisp because it's a phone, for cryin' out loud). My heart was about to pound out of my chest with excitement. And finally the X-FEST guys came out and introduced them. And it was all on from there baby!!! I sang every damn word of the set, which was (in no particular order):
So Far
Next To You
Everything
Crazy Bitch
Broken Glass
Ridin'
Porno Star
Fall
Lit Up
I was jumping and singing with every ounce of stength in me, while passing along (and sometimes getting bashed in the head by... lol) the body surfers. About halfway through the set, these two chicks started all-out brawling. Didn't matter to me, as long as they didn't obstruct my view haha! They were both removed shortly after lol. During "Lit Up", Josh Todd started chanting CO! CAINE! CO! CAINE! and of course everyone followed. I thought my voice was gonna give out, but didn't care, I was gonna milk this for all it was worth haha. Just imagine around 25,000 die-hard fans screaming and jumping in unison for this one time, each one as into it as the next... Awesome moment, I just wish I could have it on tape somewhere to put in a safe to keep forever.
On that note, we were on such a high that we didnt' care about the other 3 bands left to go (Three Days Grace, Avenged Sevenfold, and Staind), so we decided to leave on that high note. That evening had to be the greatest 40 minutes of my life so far. It was the most adrenaline-injected feeling I've ever had, I got to see my favorite band of the last 8 years, and iit was something I wanted to do before I die. This was a day I'll absolutely never forget. Never. I can't even get the smile off my face now, just from recalling it. What as awesome memory this will always be...