Wherein I am told the vomiting is inevitable, I bow to peer pressure, and I discover a new favorite drink.
I went to my first metal concert when I was fourteen. It was a Pantera/Skid Row show at Madison Square Garden. One of my older brothers was taking me. A metal fan for years, this was his way of inducting me into the culture. He was just glad I wasn’t a Madonna fan like another brother.
“Since it’s your first metal concert, you gotta get drunk and throw up,” he said. His two friends nodded and grunted. This was the way it had been, and this is the way it was going to be. The metal gods had dictated the law, and we must follow it.
We were driving into the city, rather than taking a train. My brother drove and I was in the back seat. There was beer hidden in the car, and it was my job to reach through the backseat seats into the trunk to grab and dispense the beer. They all drank, even my brother who drove. He kept handing his beer off to someone else, so it never appeared that he had a beer. It was cheap beer. I remember it a silvery can, like a Coors. I had one myself, but drank it slowly. I felt like that shitty beer alone could make me throw up. I hadn’t had a lot of alcohol at that age, but I was experienced enough to know shitty beer. But I was fourteen and they were in their twenties – who was I to object? Maybe this was one of the trials of metal.
We arrived at the show, and my brother let me and his two friends off while he found somewhere to park. I didn’t really know his friends. I had seen them when they visited my brother, but I didn’t exactly know them. They seemed cool, but I think my brother’s choice in friends were not my own. But they knew better, so I followed them as they walked near one of the barriers near the ticket booth.
“Okay,” said one conspiratorially, “I need you to duck under this barrier. Just keep your head down and keep walking until you’re at the concession stands.”
“What?” I said.
It turned out that my brother hadn’t bought a ticket for me. To save money, they were just going to sneak me in. I was fourteen, I was still “the little guy” of the group. I was dressed in a T-shirt and a denim jacket, which somehow made me even less notable.
I balked. Sneak in? That would be wrong. What if somebody caught me?
“Don’t get caught,” said the second friend.
This was of little consolation to me. What if I didn’t want to do it?
“Then you need to go home,” said the first friend. “Penn Station is right here, you can take a train home. Tickets are sold out. It’s not like we can just buy you a ticket.”
I asked about scalpers, but he just raised his eyebrow.
I’m not sure if everyone has had one of these situations, but if not, you’ve surely seen it on TV. The after school specials brand it “Peer Pressure.” I was standing there, and the cool kids were telling me I had to do something wrong or go home. When I was younger, I had that situation too. I went home. And let me tell you, that sucked. It’s a very sad walk home. You either doubt yourself, or you are so sure of your rightness, that you mutely trudge home. But either way, you go home alone. Why is doing the right thing such a bitter pill to swallow?
The two friends were looking at me expectantly. I fidgeted, looking around, hoping my brother would show up at any minute. I looked at the barriers, the crowd, the cars passing, and then back to the barrier. I nodded uncomfortably. They slapped me on the back and laughed.
With them making a human shield in front of me, I stood in front of the barrier. Ten feet away the ticket taker and two bouncers processed the line of people. There was a ton of noise and a ton of activity. Nobody would notice. Nobody should notice. I took a deep breath, grabbed the barrier and scooted under.
It was not simply the inside past the barrier. I knew this before I went under. There were some random boxes, somebody’s lunch, and something that I was pretty sure was a discarded dildo. I didn’t stop to check, I just kept crawling. When I was far enough, I risked a look back. So far so good. I moved to a crouch and quickly moved towards the next area. I heard a shout and looked back again. Nobody saw me. I turned back around right as I ran headfirst into someone and fell to the ground.
The man looking down on me was huge. Not super tall, but he was heavily muscled. His arms were exposed and they were covered with tattoos. His head was shaved, his nose was pierced, and he had plugs in his ears. He carried a beer in a plastic cup in his left hand. My first thought was “Oh crap, a bouncer.”
He stared at me for a long second. I didn’t think to move. Inwardly I winced, for I was convinced I was getting kicked out.
Finally, he said, “Whoa, little dude, are you okay?”
“I… I fell. I dropped something… and when I went to pick it up, I fell.” Even at a young age, I was quick with plausible lies. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool, dude,” he said. His voice was not the voice you would expect to come out of him. He looked fierce and imposing. You’d expect his voice to be something like a growl of a bear, more suited to leading blue painted savages against unbelievable odds to fight their oppressors. Instead he sounded just like an average guy you’d see working retail. His voice was actually pleasant.
“Here, let me help you up,” he said. Without putting down his beer, he grabbed me with his right hand and pulled me up. I changed my mind back. There was something about a bear leading an army to him. He had grabbed me by my shoulder and picked me up like I was nothing, his beer miraculously unspilled. I’m not sure if that beer even sloshed against the side.
“Th… thank you,” I stammered, rubbing at what must be bruises on my shoulder.
“No problem,” he said, taking a sip of his beer and wandering off.
I looked around. The crowd here was different from what I would see at the Slayer and White Zombie concerts. The dude who helped me up was obviously a Pantera fan, but he was in the minority. Skid Row was the big dog here; Pantera was only the opening band. This meant that the place was flooded with sixteen year old girls with their makeup on overdrive, black Skid Row T-shirts, and undying love for Sebastian Bach. Seriously, I had never seen more comically long eyelashes and dark eye makeup in my life, not even when I later found myself at goth clubs. And all the girls were sixteen or similarly underage. There were no twenty year olds – this was something my brother and his friends remarked about later. Skid Row made all of Madison Square Garden a jailbait jamboree. Luckily I was similarly underage – fair game if I actually had the balls to try to talk to them, which would mean stepping between them and their precious Sebastian Bach. Some things are too dangerous.
After all my gawking I oriented myself and found that I was not very far from the concession stand. There was a monster of a line – all older metal guys buying cheap beer. Maybe getting drunk was the only way to put up with the legion of baby sex teens around them.
I leaned myself on a free section of concrete wall next to the concession stand and waited. It was another fifteen minutes before my brother and his friends showed up. I immediately cursed off my brother. His two friends vanished like ninjas while people around us stared. My brother took me aside so that my histrionics would not get in anyone’s way. Then he reached into his pocket and produced one unused ticket.
His friends lied.
We found somewhere to sit down while I calmed down. It was then that he told me a story. When he was thirteen, he went to his first punk show. His friends were all older, but unlike me, nobody was looking out for him. They really didn’t have a ticket for him. So he was forced to crawl under the barriers and sneak in. For him, it was a much more enlightening experience. This was at the height of the punk movement. If there was surface area on clothes that could have spikes on it, there were spikes. What little hair people had was spiked tall and rainbow colored. He saw men leading their girls around on leashes, women doing the opposite, and in a few cases, people wearing leashes without owners. It was quite an experience. So he sympathized with my plight, but also said not to take it too hard.
We went and found his friends, who I did not stop glaring at for the rest of the night. We found places to stand for Pantera. Since they were the opening band, there were many empty seats. Most people didn’t care about them, which was a shame, since they put on a much better show. I don’t want to play hardercore-than-thou, but Pantera was heavier metal. Skid Row was a weak form of hair metal, and it was never more apparent than having a super heavy metal band like Pantera open for them. For those unfamiliar with metal, just know that Pantera went to 11.
After Pantera there was a break. Most people hit the bathrooms and concession stands, and if not, they milled around. However, my brother knew a person or two, which got us in one of the private parties. In a back room, Pantera was having a private party. It was the band, agents, roadies, various hangers on, and a few musicians from other bands who happened to be in the area. My brother’s two friends vanished to schmooze, which was fine by me. I barely saw them the rest of the night.
My brother introduced me to two of the four members of Pantera. One was drunk, while the other was stoned, plus possibly also drunk. Still, they were nice guys and glad to meet a fan – not once did I detect anything in their facial expressions to indicate they had the thought of “what the hell is this kid doing in here?” After that, we stood around, my brother talking to friends, myself listening to the conversations but adding nothing.
The private party had a private bar which served much better drinks than outside. My brother got me a 7&7: one part Seagram’s Seven, one part 7UP. If you’ve ever gotten one of these in a bar, it’s either in a short glass or a taller glass that is so overfull with ice that you’re really drinking as much as is in the short glass. Instead this was a tall clear plastic cup filled nearly to the top with no ice. As an adult, I wish I could get this much 7&7 every time I ordered one.
As my brother handed me this, he noted that I had not really responded to the shit beer in the car. He also noted that I should get drunk and throw up. He said the 7&7 was the compromise. I had to drink the whole thing before we left. If that didn’t get me drunk enough to throw up, then I was in the clear. That was fine by me – I wasn’t too enamored with the idea of puking my guts out, even for the sake of metal.
A 7&7 when made right is strong. When you’re a fourteen year old kid with no tolerance, it’s super strong. But also when made right, you don’t taste the alcohol quite as much as with other drinks. The conclusion to all this was that I drank a lot of that 7&7 in the next hour after he gave it to me. So much that certain parts of the evening were a blur. I remember being introduced to various other music industry people my brother knew. I think I shook hands with a guy from Anthrax. I met some older women who seemed to be producers or something. I remember putting my drink down on top of a urinal to take a piss, just so I wouldn’t lose it. I remember gauging how much was left while I pissed away what I had already had.
At some point my brother grabbed me and we went and watched Skid Row for a while. It was way more crowded than before. We had seats assigned, but we didn’t go to them. My brother took me much farther up, and we just pushed our way into a line of people standing up and watching the show. Nobody behind us said anything; the music was playing and I’m sure it looked like we belonged there.
Skid Row was okay. I’m not sure what else to say. I don’t remember much more than that. At some point, my brother passed me a joint. It was attached to a roach clip and had burned down to nearly nothing. I have no idea if it was his or if it had just been passed down the line. I hadn’t noticed him smoking it, but I’m not sure anyone would have noticed the smell of just a little more pot. I took as much of a toke I could get off it, coughed a lot, then took another sip of my drink.
By all rights, I should leave off here. Memory fails me about the rest of the night. I could produce some ribald tale of me seducing one of the sixteen year old Skid Row girls, but that would be as uninteresting to you as the truth. The rest of the night was such a blur. Between the 7&7, the joint, and the contact high of a few thousand people smoking and drinking, I was pretty fucked up by the end of the concert. We left the concert, I remember city streets. I remember one of my brother’s friends puking on a dog. The dog was displeased. I have a vague memory of leaning my head against the window of the car and seeing the streetlights pass. I woke up in my bed the next morning.
I didn’t throw up, though. That I know. I call that a win.
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