Mexico City Journal: Metallica
Mexico City Journal
Last week a friend asked me if I liked stadium concerts. No, I said, I avoid stadium bullshit. The bands are too big, their crowds too massive, and the whole thing sucks.
What if it's a band you love, he asked, like Metallica?
Fuck Metallica, I said, They're old; they're past their prime; and they pissed me off with the whole Napster bullshit.
Hmm... Well, he said, Dave got us tickets to see them on Sunday.
No shit?
No shit. So you still uninterested in going?
Well fuck yeah I'm interested in going.
You pinche puta.
So we went and it was awesome. The Mexican crowd knew all the words (I, on the other hand, forgot everything except for the chorus) and the crowd was totally into it. Oddly, there weren't many pits, but that was a nice change of pace. The few pits that did spring up were unpopulated. We rushed into one, but there were only about 5 people in the pit. As F and I rushed in, we saw two guys facing off, ready to start fighting - for real. Both had their hands up in fighting position. F and I didn't talk to each other, didn't look at each other, but each of us ran to one guy. F ran into his guy football-style, and I ran into my guy and hugged him and bounced around with him. Soon, were all dancing around, fight averted. Soon after, F tells me to get out of the pit. There's a big guy taking wild swings, but I grab him and pat him on the shoulder. A few seconds later I get sucker punched in the jaw. But other than that, the tiny, calm, and temporary pits were great, the show was great, and I wanted to go back and slug my naysayer-self in the jaw.