After a busy day testing at the warehouse, Keith, Charlotte, and I met up with Pat (sans overalls, a first) and his wife Marsha in front of the Hard Rock at Fourth Street Live.
Pat had a friend who was competing for front row seats and backstage passes to a Stones concert. The competition was put on by a radio station and the goal was to do the most outrageous thing you could think of on stage to a Stones song. Pat’s friend Tim, a police officer, had called in and offered to dress like Keith Richards and get shot with a Taser gun for five seconds while they played “Start Me Up”. Based on that offer, he became one of the five contestants. We were introduced to Tim. He had the hots for Charlotte’s accent.
Soon enough the MC took the stage and introduced the other contestants; a guy who dressed as Raggedy Andy and would play “Paint It Black” on the guitar while tap dancing, an older lady who dressed in her high-school cheerleader uniform and twirled a flaming baton, and a guy who would eat a bunch of banana peppers dressed in his wife’s lingerie. I don’t mean to disparage the other folks’ fine performances, but Tim won hands down. It was legitimately frightening when the MC shot him and his whole body went stiff. The security guys standing by helped him fall forward gracefully, and then he lay on the ground motionless. For a moment I thought he might actually be dead, but after a while he got back up and the crowd went absolutely wild.
After that an opening act came on that I don’t know. They rocked adequately. And then after a long wait, the headliners for the night came on… 38 Special! Yes, the amazing 38 special, the southern rocking band from the late 70′s / early 80′s came out to rock Louisville tonight. The atmosphere was electric, we screamed ourselves hoarse, and they ripped onto stage with a pumping rendition of “Rockin’ Into the Night”.
About 30 seconds into the song, however, it started raining heavily. Now Fourth Street Live is covered, but it is open air, and there was enough crosswind that we were getting totally soaked, and so was the band. In the middle of the song the keyboard player grabbed his keyboard and ran off stage. Pansy. But the rest of the band stayed on and rocked until the tune was done, even though it was a little scary watching the downpour go right through their lighting rig. I respected that. Then they all ran off stage too. Roadies came out and threw tarps over everything, and we began to wait. And wait. And wait. The rain died down and it was pretty dry for more than an hour. During this time Keith and I argued with Charlotte about whether American bands or British bands were more lilly assed. Charlotte maintained that in the UK bands play in the rain all the time. I fully expected 38 Special to come back out and prove her wrong. I mean, come on, the band is named after a type of ammunition! Are they really going to be dissuaded by a little rain?
Nearly two hours later we learned the answer: yes. The MC announced that due to “technical difficulties” they wouldn’t be returning to stage. I guess they really did line up with their namesake, described by Wikipedia thusly: “by modern standards, the .38 Special fires a medium sized bullet at rather low speeds”. Not too impressive sounding, but whatcha gonna do?
We went in and had dinner at the Hard Rock, then walked through the a raging thunderstorm, one of the heaviest I’ve seen in a long time. We were a couple of drowned rats by the time we got back to our cars. But at least we weren’t duds.
.38 Special < Scorpions
I hope the rain reminded you of our life-altering experience at the first Monsters of Rock. It was 20 years ago THIS VERY NIGHT, In the middle of some god-forsaken speedway in Maine, a giant metal stage the tallest thing in at least a couple of square miles… thunderclouds and lightning booming in the distance. A storm was a’brewin. But you know who it couldn’t stop? That guy. Klaus Meine. The Scorpions.
Scorpions must be more lethal than .38 specials, because they kept playing as the lightning crept closer and closer. Perhaps they secretly wanted to be struck by lightning during Rock You Like a Hurricane?
True Van Halen also played with the stage soaking wet and fear of electrocution, but it don’t count as much sine they were all drunk.
ps. I highly recommend http://www.the-scorpions.com/ for a good dose of cheese. Turn the volume WAY up.
Re: .38 Special < Scorpions
Dude, I’ll never forget that concert. It was my first rock concert ever you realize, and I did not understand fully at the time but I couldn’t have planned a better first concert experience. I saw so much shit that day I’d never seen before… moshing, crowd surfing, people smoking weed, drunken brawls, people getting crushed, chicks climbing on top of guys to flash the stage, random strangers making out. It was amazing. Add to that the worst, literally life threatening weather, and the fact that the bands played on for a full set? That just put it right the fuck over the top. I hadn’t considered it, but now that you bring it up, last night’s show just makes me apprecaite Monsters all the more.
No matter what happens bro, we’ll always have Monsters.
Re: .38 Special < Scorpions
I distinctly remember the guys from Scorpions looking nervous as the lightning rolled in. But they’re still manly. they’re SCORPIONS!
There was so much marijuana every single thing reeked of it. I remember the t-shirt I bought smelled like pot. The water smelled like pot. It’s a smell I will forever link with concerts. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were all high from just sitting in the smoke for so long. Every single guy holding in all of New England must have depleted their stash for that concert.
Remember how Mr. Carter fell asleep driving us home and got pulled over by the cops? We all could have died a fiery death that night. That’s so metal.
Speaking of drugs… now that I think about it… we both worked in the kitchen at Norwood Hospital (now THAT’S brutal) is your recollection that most of the adults there were stoned 100% of the time? There was a lot of coke and a surprising amount of LSD. And my childhood friend Dwayne and a couple of other guys were running distribution of some hard stuff from housekeeping. Didn’t seem to work out great for them.
The sad thing was – and I’m not sure if you agree – most of these guys weren’t happy recreational drug users. They were wrecks. This makes me sad. I need a drink.
Re: .38 Special < Scorpions
I think I was sort of naive and oblivious to that at the Hospital, it wasn’t until just before I left that I started realizing some of what was going on. Loads of drug taking and dealing, and I think there was a lot of random hooking up too. What would one expect in a place with tons of private rooms and beds and teenagers? But that was when we were worked in the kitchen, then I went back a couple years later and worked for your Dad in housekeeping. Me and Jim Collins man. Those were some good times too.
I didn’t follow up on any of those guys, but yeah, there’s some percentage of drug users that just go down the tubes. I’m still going to vote “Yes” on Question 7th in Nevada this November… legalize and regulate marijuana similar to alcohol. To my mind, folks seem to be able to get the drugs illegally anyways, and getting arrested and thrown in prison just makes things worse for them.
The friggin’ SCORPIONS!
Re: .38 Special < Scorpions
> Me and Jim Collins man. Those were some good times too.
I always liked Jim! A couple of years ago I was at the Norwood 4th of July parade (with Mary Shillue) and on one of the army trucks there was black and white picture of him in a military uniform. So I take that to mean that either he was serving in Iraq or had been killed there! Oh no! I put a pretty big effort into finding out but couldn’t find anything either way. Or maybe it wasn’t a picture of Jim :/
> I didn’t follow up on any of those guys,
> but yeah, there’s some percentage of drug users that
> just go down the tubes.
Well those guys were all kids – we were kids – so hopefully things worked out for them eventually
In retrospect it was kind of short-sighted to be calling people burn-outs at age 15!
> I’m still going to vote “Yes” on Question 7th in Nevada this November…
> legalize and regulate marijuana similar to alcohol. To my mind, folks seem
> to be able to get the drugs illegally anyways, and getting arrested and
> thrown in prison just makes things worse for them.
I’d never heard of Question 7… cool. Yeah, arresting people for possession for personal use is ridiculous (I actually think they don’t do that in NYC for under a certain amount).
I’ve always been curious about how to enforce legalization though. I mean, with alcohol you can easily do a blood alcohol test. Is there something equivalent to check marijuana consumption? If you get pulled over for driving too slow will they have to take a blood test or give a urine sample? I’m just curious about the technial implementation, and there is a civil liberties too about being compelled to give up blood (which will have a LOT more info in it than just THC levels).
Apart from legalizing pot, there’s a much bigger issue which is that america desperately needs prison sentencing reform. California’s “3 strikes” law is inhuman. I’m glad they modified it somewhat for drugs, but its still a disgrace.
And you know… i’ve also wondered why they don’t do more to try to stop anal rape in prison. Just wondering.