I was caught in a seething mass of humanity, and it kicked me in the head and stole my hat (720 hits)
Category: NoneRating: -0.2 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Despiadado <bored.at.work.com> (View user info) at 2004-01-19 12:16:48 EST
A few months ago, me and some of my closest mates were lucky enough to get to Brisbane's LIVID 2003. This was my first rock concert and an absolutely awesome experience. We had left the planning of our little trip far too late, one of the girls had paid for her ticket, but thought it was in the mail when it turned out to be ready for pick up in the city. I had also paid for my ticket but had to do a rush trip into Ticketech to get my ticket before they closed for the weekend. And we didn't really have any clue as to how to get to the venue, because none of us had been to this particular event before. Two more of the guys had thought they were getting free tickets from one of their "contacts" but as it turned out they were being led on, and on the day gave me a call and explained that they wouldn't be able to be there and spend the day with the rest of us. This kind of bummed me out to start the day off. I had decided to catch the train into the city and just follow the crowds to the grounds, and meet up with the rest of the guys there. Only problem was, not all of the crowds were going in the same direction. And people headed to these sort of events are fucking RUDE!
I got confused and thought that I had lost my way, so I turned to one of the faces walking allog beside, "Hey, mate. You recon you could...". The bastard just kept on walking. Try again. The next person was a gothic chick with a dog collar on. Ok, next. A seemingly normal sort of guy, if you ignore the dreadlocks, but hippies are meant to be friendly, right? Wrong. "Hey, buddy...". "What the fuck, you little tard! Get lost.". Luckily a nice asian guy openning the store where he worked had noticed my quandary, and informed me that I was actually headed in the right direction and to just keep following the weirdos down the street. Good advice, from where I was standing anyways, so I followed the masses and ended up in a huge queue of what I had come to recognise as rock fans. Not at all what I expected. I mean, I'm a rock fan, my friends are rock fans, but none of us wear devices intended to control animals as clothing, or neglect our hair to the extent that it becomes a seperate entity. Anyway, in this huge line ending at the entry gates were people from various companies handing out various freebees for me to consume whilst awaiting admission to the grounds. I got free yogurt, free tampons and a free CD holder, all of which I later threw at the cover bands. I was constantly sending SMS messages to my friends to make sure that they could find me when they arrived. Some of them had been to a party the previous night and were a bit seedy to say the least. They told me that they were pooling in a cab and would arrive at the front of the line in a few minutes. I was about mid-way through the queue, so it was time to pretend that I couldn't speak english in order to advance my placement and meet up with my mates.
Most of the patrons paid no attention to me as a simply walked past them on my way, but a few of them stopped me to ask me just what in the name of fuck I thought I was doing, to which I answered "Ummmm....no.....ummmmm......ingleesch". Eventually I spotted the cab pulling up and jumped a temporary K-rail to greet my fellow concert go-ers. Out of the car came several of my friends and a few new additions that nobody had yet told me about. After the introductions we assimillated ourselves back into the front of the line, and the doors soon opened to let us in. The people just poured through getting their tickets stubbed by security as they passed the first checkpoint. At the second check point you were issued with a coloured wrist band indicating whether or not you are allowed to drink. After this you were sent through a road and from their you could walk to all of the five stages. There was the Annex stage, this was a fully covered stage where it was completly back with a laser show happening. The music was Regge. Not exactly my favourite, but some of the europeans in our party love the stuff.
Next there was the Tripple J Bigtop. This had some of the more popular bands, including the white stripes, but being run by Tripple J, also displayed some of the absolute crap some jerk-offs listen to. There was a Hip-Hop/DJ stage. This was tiny and located at the center of the food area. Apparently Rahzel was there, but I never saw him. Next to that was a skate demo. Again, not something we were there to see. There was the Loudmouth stage. This was described as the "hardcore" stage. Goldfinger was there, and I wanted to go see that, but they were on at the same time as The Living End, so sorry Goldfinger, but The Living End beats your ass. The Loudmouth stage was surrounded by undesiribles of the Gothic variety. Girls wearing black knit stockings with nurse outfits on does not go down well with my music. Unless they're really hot and possibly bi-sexual. And ofcourse, there was the stage were all bands we really came to see were, the Main Stage. We were there from about two pm onwards. During that time we saw Pacifier, Rocket science, Frenzal Rhomb, The Living End, Jurrassic 5 and Linkin Park.
At the main stage, the smell of pot wafted over the dense crowd that grew slowly as the day wore on, and the better, more popular bands came to play. The price of bottled water sky-rocketed and the Merchandise stall became overwhelmed with clientele, looking to buy a piece of music memorabilia. I must admit, that I too was swept up in the pandemonium, and bought myself a nice orange LIVID trucker hat. Some of the other guys got beer coolers, which they used as wrist bands. Crazy Europeans. One of the Danish guys managed to get us all some beer despite the fact that we didn't have the correct colour wrist bands so we could all enjoy our music just that much more. Plus it meant that I could dance. And when Jurrasic 5 got on, that's exactly what we all did. Though I don't usually listen to Hip-Hop, I guess we all just got caught up in the beats and did as the rest of the crowd was doing. We went for ages and I was fucking wreacked by the time Linkin Park finally took the stage. No generally I consider Linkin Park as a sort of rip off of Limp Bizkit, who I don't like either. But when you see a band that is so well liked live, you can't ignore that opportunity to crash down into the mosh pit and get in some serious head banging. I stuck on my new hat and tossed my old Nike one in the general direction of the stage and got together a couple of guys who were game to see how close we could get to the front row. One of the crazy ass europeans was actually going to take his digital camera down to the mosspit to get a close up of the lead singer, but I managed to convince him that that would just be idiotic. He settled for me taking a grainy, digitally zoomed image from where we had left the girls to mind, our bags.
We made our way through the crowd, and as we neared the stage, the masses of bodies only became more and more dense, eventually to the point where people were being pushed up and having to get on top of each others shoulders to avoid the choking proximity around them. The cluster was almost stagnant as the band was yet to begin. In the swarm, I had lost all but one of my mates and was left in about the fifth row trying desperately to get closer before Linkin Park started playing and the moshers started moshing. I was just starting to get ahead when all at once the lights on the stage lit up and exhibited the spectacle right before our eyes. The lead singer said some generic rock star phrase like "Are you ready to rock" or something like that, and began to play. The flood of people began to jump, and I could do nothing but join in. Immediatly, crowd surfers were asking for lifts up onto the top of the horde, and those who knew the lyric were singing along. The satainist all had their hands up making the two horned devil sign thing, and the groupies were taking their tops off for the cameras to show on the big screens. With all that was going on I had become caught in the seething mass of humanity, and a crowd surfer flew over me, kicked me in the head, and my hat was stolen by the crowd. I quickly put out a hand to catch it but it was bouncing on a persons shoulder just a few centimeters (inches for you yanks) out of my grasp. I lunged forward as far as I could but only managed to knock the hat further away. The sheer density of the crowd kept my hat away from the torn up dirt and mud that I was standing in, but I needed it back my hands. I used the person standing behind me as a launching pad to get myself up onto the masses of fans and snached my hat from between a pair of moshers. I finaly scrambled my way out of the pit and back to my bag where I found the girls jumping in time with the music, and swaying their heads around. I must have looked like shit because I got instant sympathy. "What the fuck happened to you?". All I could get out was that I had been kicked in the head, but had a shit load of fun. They thought I was crazy. I waited there until the rest of the guys trickeled back individually from the mosh pit, all complete with stories and battle scars.
One of the Norwegian girls then hurried us away to the Annex stage where the final Regge bang was finishing up. There was hardly anybody there, I suppose because they were still at the main stage getting out of that mess. I forget the girl's name but she got to touch the regge artist hand as he was leaving and she must have liked him because she ran around screaming in broken english and norwegian. That was the last act for the day, and we had to find our way to a lift home through one way streets and barricaded roads surrounding the venue. The woman who was comming to get me and the turk who had offered me a ride home finally found us wondering across some bridge near the university on the way to Queens street. I slept well that night, fucking tired from all the bullshit that had happend, but it was all worth it for my first experience going to a LIVID. I'm sure I'll be going back next year, and the year after that and the year after that.
User Reviews
Submitted by 10c7c (user info) at 2004-11-02 12:30:44 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by DlESEL (user info) at 2004-03-29 05:54:54 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=1080557554891617886
Submitted by skatastrophy (user info) at 2004-01-19 20:00:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
pretty good post.... Sorta ran on a bit. Your spelling needs work. its spelt Reggae. Not that that was all you spelt wrong but it annoys me when people spell reggae wrong.
Submitted by Random Joe at 2004-01-19 19:22:03 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
"The Loudmouth stage was surrounded by undesiribles of the Gothic variety"
I seriously doubt that seeing as the Loudmouth stage consisted of mainly punk rock and ska bands.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Submitted by ThatOneGirl (user info) at 2004-01-19 19:19:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Might be nicer if you cut it down a bit. +2 though because you got kicked in the head!
Submitted by JinkyWilliams (user info) at 2004-01-19 12:46:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I like your stuff, Despiadado.
Sure, the paragraphs could be a bit smaller, but really nothing big. I still read it all the way through.
Interesting slice of life.
Stay orange.
--JW
Submitted by jonukah (user info) at 2004-01-19 12:27:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
You're paragraphs are too long....but losing your hat sucks