Shows I Have Known
While talking with lunarennui, I ended up reminiscing about concerts I've seen. Even some of the crap ones have some interesting stories. It started with us complaining about doctors....
That night I was almost killed at a Worcester NIN concert in 1995, when the doctor finally decided to tend to the small hole in my face, he numbed the area with a shot, then said he'd come back later to stitch it. After 15 minutes I started to wonder. Eric went out to find the guy about to get in his car and go home. Eric dragged him back inside. Somebody had to who wasn't me, because I couldn't get upright on my own well with my neck so badly hurt.
I was in there for hours being ignored. I was alone and unable to get up. Couldn't even use the ladies room since I was in an unyielding neck brace and woozy. (20 people had landed on top of me and inadvertantly tried to smush me into the concrete floor.) Eric finally found me there four hours after I was admitted. We were separated in the rush that ended up taking me down to the floor on my head. He never knew something had gone wrong until the concert was over and he still couldn't find me. Then the hospitals didn't want to give him any information even though he was my brother. There were three major ones in the area so he called them all.
He had a great time at the show. I went down during the second song of the set. ::weak smile::
That was a crazy night. Human wreckage from the concert kept wandering by. One kid in a brace twitching on a gurney as doctors ran him through the hall. One girl who spoke to me got caught in the crush, lost her shoes and purse. And thus her money, ID, and train ticket home. One girl got her knee kicked in when she asked the guy who had been pogoing/stomping on her feet to please stop it. Kids with weird hair colors staggering through the halls. This was just one of the area hospitals near the venue.
I would get flashbacks hearing certain NIN songs for months afterwards.
Pittsburgh NIN was great. Orderly. Had the time of my life. I think that being able to talk about it as the most recent concert I'd seen with one of the passing DJs helped get me my radio station internship. Worcester NIN had people ripping seats out that had been bolted into concrete.
A riot almost started at a Switchblade Symphony show I was at. You know the asshole deserved a beatdown when a bunch of goths were ready to mess up their hair, makeup, and clothes to get at him. Really, one cute blond guy asked him nicely to stop battering the people around him but the guy was too high and violent to care. Worse thing? The high asshole who was stumbling around and hurting everyone around him was with the band.
Lead singer got pissy when Security removed him before everyone around him, my brother included, got a chance to take a swing at him. (Eric was taking off his velvet shirt and watch in preparation for the throwdown. I still smirk about that.)
You've never heard Security get an ovation from half a room before. Really. When Tina said we should demand Security let him back in, my side of the room, who saw what he'd been doing, all growled, "NO." It was great.
I think he was there to stir up the crowd or some shit. At a goth show! We like to sway, sing, and listen to the music, thanks. We don't like seeing our small chicksticks get knocked around. Good thing about goth shows is I could stand near the front and see the band without having to worry about getting fragged by a mosher.
Switchblade Symphony gave a good performance, but Tina was obviously pissy for the rest of the night over the guy's expulsion, which ticks me off.
I saw them once before opening for Sisters of Mercy but was too delirious from heatstroke to really enjoy it. I spent most of that show lying on the cool concrete floor amidst the cigarette butts. Had to see Sisters of Mercy. Had to. Though the whole crowd wasn't in much better shape than I was and started groaning at the third encore because they just wanted to go home and collapse. I'm sure that venue violated fire codes from how many people it had shoved in there, and the big fans they had running didn't cut it for a July summer in Philly.
After my near-death deal, I became more careful about what I went to see. I had to use crowd fu at some points during a Pigface show two years ago. Moshers again. Funny thing is that I was shielding a girl in front of me too. She didn't even know. She wasn't that much smaller than I was either.
Good show though. The first band sucked, but I liked Zeromancer, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, and Pigface. They do great shows, though it annoyed me that one member of Zeromancer tried to whip up the crowd. I'm not a trained monkey, thanks. Pigface is an interesting band to see because they have that rotating membership. 20-something people coming on and off the stage depending on the song.
Somebody tried to pick me up after that show, but he was too dim to bother with. A little too smarmy too. I told him I had to go all the way back to Queens, and he offered to let me stay overnight at his apartment, kind soul that he was. No strings on that offer, I'm sure!
The Electric Hellfire Club sucked when I saw them. They opened for the Genitorturers that night, and one guy fainted at my feet during the Genitorturers' show. Now that was a show. I wondered if the slaves onstage signed waivers.... The guy who fainted and fell onto my feet lost it when Gen started stitching one of her slaves' lips together.
She kept trying to offer me clothespins from her slaves' nipples. (I was close to the stage.) I kept shaking my head No. lunarennui said I should have taken one, just to make her stop it, but there were, like, worshippers in that crowd. How could I deprive one of them?
There were racks and clothespins and dildos and hot wax and needles.... That was the first time I saw a guy with his cock and balls tied behind him. At first I didn't even know what I was looking at! She was stitching that guy's area up too at one point. The fainter made it through that but lost it at the lips. His friends had to pick him up and help him stumble away.
And there was what certainly looked like Gen funneling hot wax into one slave's vagina, so....
You've never heard such a quiet crowd. There was no sounds from them. No moshing. Just silent staring and the occasional reaching forward of the worshippers.
Hmm. I saw Tapping the Vein once and thought they sucked.
I like the Plastic Fantastics, but I think they still haven't gotten a deal. One show their mics went out and their lead guitarist improvised a song on the spot while the lead singer futzed around trying to fix the mic. It started with stomping and "We don't need no sound!" It was the hit of the night. The enthusiastic and somewhat drunken German tourists ("We love rock 'n' roll!") certainly approved. We all asked for an encore of "We don't need no sound" later, which kind of pissed the lead singer off.
When have I been in a venue that had decent sound? Almost never. My own band kept getting screwed over by all the house sound guys. My vocals are "too hot for the house" my ass.
I kinda miss my going out days. It just seems like more effort now. And too much money. And there are fewer clubs here now. And....
That night I was almost killed at a Worcester NIN concert in 1995, when the doctor finally decided to tend to the small hole in my face, he numbed the area with a shot, then said he'd come back later to stitch it. After 15 minutes I started to wonder. Eric went out to find the guy about to get in his car and go home. Eric dragged him back inside. Somebody had to who wasn't me, because I couldn't get upright on my own well with my neck so badly hurt.
I was in there for hours being ignored. I was alone and unable to get up. Couldn't even use the ladies room since I was in an unyielding neck brace and woozy. (20 people had landed on top of me and inadvertantly tried to smush me into the concrete floor.) Eric finally found me there four hours after I was admitted. We were separated in the rush that ended up taking me down to the floor on my head. He never knew something had gone wrong until the concert was over and he still couldn't find me. Then the hospitals didn't want to give him any information even though he was my brother. There were three major ones in the area so he called them all.
He had a great time at the show. I went down during the second song of the set. ::weak smile::
That was a crazy night. Human wreckage from the concert kept wandering by. One kid in a brace twitching on a gurney as doctors ran him through the hall. One girl who spoke to me got caught in the crush, lost her shoes and purse. And thus her money, ID, and train ticket home. One girl got her knee kicked in when she asked the guy who had been pogoing/stomping on her feet to please stop it. Kids with weird hair colors staggering through the halls. This was just one of the area hospitals near the venue.
I would get flashbacks hearing certain NIN songs for months afterwards.
Pittsburgh NIN was great. Orderly. Had the time of my life. I think that being able to talk about it as the most recent concert I'd seen with one of the passing DJs helped get me my radio station internship. Worcester NIN had people ripping seats out that had been bolted into concrete.
A riot almost started at a Switchblade Symphony show I was at. You know the asshole deserved a beatdown when a bunch of goths were ready to mess up their hair, makeup, and clothes to get at him. Really, one cute blond guy asked him nicely to stop battering the people around him but the guy was too high and violent to care. Worse thing? The high asshole who was stumbling around and hurting everyone around him was with the band.
Lead singer got pissy when Security removed him before everyone around him, my brother included, got a chance to take a swing at him. (Eric was taking off his velvet shirt and watch in preparation for the throwdown. I still smirk about that.)
You've never heard Security get an ovation from half a room before. Really. When Tina said we should demand Security let him back in, my side of the room, who saw what he'd been doing, all growled, "NO." It was great.
I think he was there to stir up the crowd or some shit. At a goth show! We like to sway, sing, and listen to the music, thanks. We don't like seeing our small chicksticks get knocked around. Good thing about goth shows is I could stand near the front and see the band without having to worry about getting fragged by a mosher.
Switchblade Symphony gave a good performance, but Tina was obviously pissy for the rest of the night over the guy's expulsion, which ticks me off.
I saw them once before opening for Sisters of Mercy but was too delirious from heatstroke to really enjoy it. I spent most of that show lying on the cool concrete floor amidst the cigarette butts. Had to see Sisters of Mercy. Had to. Though the whole crowd wasn't in much better shape than I was and started groaning at the third encore because they just wanted to go home and collapse. I'm sure that venue violated fire codes from how many people it had shoved in there, and the big fans they had running didn't cut it for a July summer in Philly.
After my near-death deal, I became more careful about what I went to see. I had to use crowd fu at some points during a Pigface show two years ago. Moshers again. Funny thing is that I was shielding a girl in front of me too. She didn't even know. She wasn't that much smaller than I was either.
Good show though. The first band sucked, but I liked Zeromancer, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, and Pigface. They do great shows, though it annoyed me that one member of Zeromancer tried to whip up the crowd. I'm not a trained monkey, thanks. Pigface is an interesting band to see because they have that rotating membership. 20-something people coming on and off the stage depending on the song.
Somebody tried to pick me up after that show, but he was too dim to bother with. A little too smarmy too. I told him I had to go all the way back to Queens, and he offered to let me stay overnight at his apartment, kind soul that he was. No strings on that offer, I'm sure!
The Electric Hellfire Club sucked when I saw them. They opened for the Genitorturers that night, and one guy fainted at my feet during the Genitorturers' show. Now that was a show. I wondered if the slaves onstage signed waivers.... The guy who fainted and fell onto my feet lost it when Gen started stitching one of her slaves' lips together.
She kept trying to offer me clothespins from her slaves' nipples. (I was close to the stage.) I kept shaking my head No. lunarennui said I should have taken one, just to make her stop it, but there were, like, worshippers in that crowd. How could I deprive one of them?
There were racks and clothespins and dildos and hot wax and needles.... That was the first time I saw a guy with his cock and balls tied behind him. At first I didn't even know what I was looking at! She was stitching that guy's area up too at one point. The fainter made it through that but lost it at the lips. His friends had to pick him up and help him stumble away.
And there was what certainly looked like Gen funneling hot wax into one slave's vagina, so....
You've never heard such a quiet crowd. There was no sounds from them. No moshing. Just silent staring and the occasional reaching forward of the worshippers.
Hmm. I saw Tapping the Vein once and thought they sucked.
I like the Plastic Fantastics, but I think they still haven't gotten a deal. One show their mics went out and their lead guitarist improvised a song on the spot while the lead singer futzed around trying to fix the mic. It started with stomping and "We don't need no sound!" It was the hit of the night. The enthusiastic and somewhat drunken German tourists ("We love rock 'n' roll!") certainly approved. We all asked for an encore of "We don't need no sound" later, which kind of pissed the lead singer off.
When have I been in a venue that had decent sound? Almost never. My own band kept getting screwed over by all the house sound guys. My vocals are "too hot for the house" my ass.
I kinda miss my going out days. It just seems like more effort now. And too much money. And there are fewer clubs here now. And....