You Know, Rock and Roll

“Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can
Keep on rockin' in the free world…”
— Neil Young

I just got home from the CSNY concert at the Sports Arena. Every single time I go see a major recording artist in a large concert hall, I make a vow that it will be the last goddam time I ever see a major recording artist in a large concert hall. It is such an antiseptic experience. Large venues completely ignore the Fine Art of Presenting a Rock Concert. To the owners of such auditoriums, it’s just a cattle drive. But I broke my vow and went the Sports Arena anyway. For two reasons: Because a.) the “Y” in CSNY stands for Young -- as in, Neil Fucking Young, and b.) I figured the venue would be populated by older, more intelligent, rockers who understand The Fine Art of Attending Rock Concerts. After all, weren’t these the muddy radicals who attended the first Woodstock – the hippest rock crowd in history?

Cast of Characters:

The Whistler (seated directly behind me): To show his appreciation for the band, The Whistler repeatedly bellowed these agonizing, high pitched firepokers of sound through his teeth and two fingers, directly into my eardrum. All who sat near him clutched their ears in pain.

The Expert (seated behind and to the right): The Expert loudly, proudly boasted of his -- ahem -- vast musical knowledge during quiet, passionate tunes like “Guinnevere” and “Harvest Moon” -- ruining these classic gems for everyone.

The Clappers (all around me): You know them. They cheerfully, mindlessly pat their hands to the music with about as much rhythm as a dog in a blender. The Security Personnel : They’re just doing their job, but they are blackened pillars of evil. . .

The Incident

With the concert already in progress, I locate my seat. Immediately, The Whistler’s piercing, overpowering mouth-barbs rout my ear canal. The pain soon becomes excruciating, and I begin to hallucinate. My mind forms a terrible, awful, wonderful fantasy in which I turn to The Whistler and politely say: “I don’t mean to be queremonious sir, but the grandiloquent, flagitious effluvium that is hemorrhaging from your vile maw is in unswerving contradistinction to my otherwise robust state of well-being.”

“Too bad pal,” he answers.

In a moment of power, speed, precision, agility, timing, good looks, and (of course) righteousness -- I slam my fist into his balls. As the poor cunt falls to his knees, I stand over him. I put a finger to his face and say, “Howya enjoying the show now, you flap-lipped fist-licker? Not easy when you’re doubled over in pain, is it?”

Neil Young busts out the first few notes of “Down by the River,” and The Clappers – like retards at the Ice Capades -- start brainlessly, merrily clapping along, hopelessly out of time.

Listen Corky. You should not merrily clap along with “Down by the River.” Have you listened to those lyrics? “Down by the river -- I SHOT my baby…”

Not, “I kissed my baby.”

Not, “I had a picnic with my baby.”

No. I Kill Kill Killed my baby.

Never, ever merrily clap along to songs about killing your baby. The correct protocol is to raise your fist and slowly punch at the sky with your eyes closed.

Jesus, people – have you forgotten everything they taught you at Woodstock U.?!

As the first flowing guitar notes of Neil’s “Harvest Moon” come bleeding through the P.A., The Expert joins the chorus of my discontent. His voice – yakking something about how “Steven Stills met David Crosby in 1967” – is bouncing around the arena walls like a bullet in the brainpan.

I can no longer withstand the torture. I leave to get a beer.

The bartender is counting out his drawer.

“We’re closed,” he says. “No more alcohol service in the building.” (There was still 90 minutes left in the show.)

Et tu Crosby Stills Nash and Young show?

Even the aging, mellow rock crowd can’t be trusted to drink after 10pm? What’d they think – we were going to get rowdy and throw our walkers on the stage?”

Devastated, disgusted, and not about to return to my most evil floor section, I seek a safe place to catch the end of the show.

But the yellow-jacketed security guards sense that something is amiss; that somehow, somewhere in the arena – somebody is out of their designated zone.

They swarm upon me like bees on a banana.

While Neil Young is howling out “Rockin’ in the Free World” I am bombarded by one security fascist after another telling me I can’t sit in the orange zone, and I can’t stand in the red zone, and I can’t hit the blue bouncy ball in the green zone, and I can’t light my farts in the yellow zone, and I think, Goddaaamn. I am never coming to see a major recording artist at a large concert venue, EVER AGAIN.

You just can’t top the bar scene, man: beer till 2am, open seating, shitty, dirty bands, smoking weed out back…

You know, rock and roll.

EJD
4/10/02