5.30.2009

Red Line, Trippin' on a Landmine: A Concert Review...again.

All right, so I thought I'd throw this on up here, just to have more than one concert type review. I kinda like storytelling as an approach, and I like people to have the feeling that they're there. So, forgive my writing style.

Anyway, I wrote this today. I had an emotional falling out with the Boyfriend and we're no longer together after 2.75 years, so. I had to do something to get my mind off of it. And this is what came out.

Enjoy!

Trippin’ On A Landmine: A Concert Review of Montage Mountain, Scranton, PA.

It’s breaking dusk outside and I manage to fall out of the car, scraping the back of my leg and stubbing my cigarette out all in the process. My ears are popping from the unwarranted altitude and I grab my jacket. Slamming the door shut, I take a look around, taking in the fresh mountain air, the gravelly parking lot, and the sign proclaiming “No Alcohol Beyond this Point.”

We’re at Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain, located in scenic Scranton, PA. It’s a change from the indoor venues that I’m used to in Philly, but I’m willing to give it a shot. We begin the roughly half a mile hike uphill toward the venue. It’s steep, and a bit of a slide on the way down, but there’s wooden handrails reinforced with chicken wire, herding us all like cattle into a single formation. We cross into the parking lot for the busses and vans, and I grab my ticket.

I proceed through security, holding out my jacket, and they search the several Velcro-shut pockets. I know the drill: I hold out my lighter and my unopened pack of cigarettes while the woman checks the open one. This is customary, but I’m actually surprised for once, considering the reputation of the band we’re here to see. Finally, the cattle are released into a pasture of overpriced alcoholic beverages and band merchandise.

Checking the tickets for the row and seat numbers, we glance around, and I realize that most of the people here are my senior by almost twenty years; some appear older. Old hippies and bikers, women in snakeskin mini skirts who may have dug them from a keepsake trunk just for this show, big hair, and people with kids who are as old as seventeen. I can almost hear the hiss of an aerosol can, the scrape of backcombing, and the snapping of gum, in sync with the clicking of stiletto heels.

Welcome to Crue Fest ‘08.

The first band is already on stage. A drink is passed into my hand while I wait at the tent, and a guy in a wheelchair who already reeks of alcohol smashes into my leg. I can’t tell if he’s a vet, but he points to my jacket, which is actually my then boyfriend’s dad’s old military jacket. His caretaker apologizes and wheels him away, after which we find our seats and sit down, watching as the young man on stage throws himself around and croons about “being helped.”

A young couple in front of us averts our attention from the stage. The girl is dancing wildly, probably already had a few, and he boyfriend is looking around nervously, trying to get her to sit once in a while. I can’t help it: I giggle like mad. At some point, she turns, smiling wickedly, and grabs a water bottle from under the seat. Immediately, she offers us some, telling us it’s what’s left of the vodka she brought in. He boyfriend apologizes, gets her to sit down for a second, and takes the water bottle. He downs the rest of it, and she settles.

At least for what’s left of this set.

The next band on is a band that had only recently come out. With a title of Sixx: A.M., the band is Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx’s side project. Started for the sole purpose of a soundtrack to go with his book, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, the band stands well enough by itself. The songs reflect the book perfectly, and I was taken aback by the actual band itself live.

The lead singer is not Sixx, but a one James Michael. Singer, songwriter-this guy has a set of pipes to kill for live. Sixx pounds away on the bass, even making attempts to get their guitarist, a diminutive thirty-something who’s one of the most unassumingly wicked axe men I’ve ever seen, to laugh. They play flawlessly, even through one song where the bass and guitar stand in front of the drum set, allowing the drummer to throw a stick, have one of them catch it, and throw it back, all in time to the song. I was dually impressed. By the end of the set, their antics increased, as their guitarist, DJ Ashba, climbed up onto the speakers, sat there, and then promptly fell off behind it. A few seconds of worry, and he comes running back out. There’s a few jokes thrown at him by the front man, and then they launch into the “live your life like you mean it” anthem, Life is Beautiful. At the end of the song, I have never heard a crowd so into it. People are jumping up and down, fists are being thrown in the air, and James Michael is leading the whole thing with a great big smile on his face. Sixx is smiling, and gazing at the crowd , all ray bans and teeth, Ashba is clapping in time, and their newest drummer is staring in awe.

The song fades out, and they exit the stage, roadies already working to turn the speakers around so that Papa Roach’s logos are on the front and Sixx: A.M.’s are on the back. The scrim is taken down and Papa Roach’s is unfurled.

At this point, we get up to get more drinks, because honestly, neither of were really into them. I’m still buzzing from Sixx’s set and I watch and laugh as the couple in front of our seats tease each other. We get our drinks, sit back down, and watch as the girl, who we later learn is named Kerri smack her boyfriend on the shoulder and then usher us to get back up and dance.
She won’t stop hassling us until we do, so we stand, and her boyfriend apologizes yet again.

Finally, Buckcherry, a band I’ve been listening to since high school, comes on. There was a slight intermission, but all we did was smoke another cigarette and walk around some. Being the lightweight that I am, I’m already buzzed, and finally, the scrim drops and the Black Butterfly logo appears and is lit. The band comes out, in true dirty fashion, making crude jokes, and ramping it up with a classic. They segue into their next set of songs, picking and choosing from the new album. In between verses, Joshua Todd, the lead singer, will begin to ramble about something really truly crude and dirty. Even though half the time I can’t really make it out, what
I can makes me laugh. There’s a truly entertaining bit about a girl giving head and reaching around to tickle his balls, or something to that effect.

There’s a half hour intermission between their set and the band of the hour, Motley Crue. I find myself waiting in line at the port a potties, and can honestly say, that to this day, have had never had to pee so badly in my life. The strains of a Rock Band game competition are going on behind me and then I’m abruptly shoved into a stall. I slam the door shut, hearing the girls who were in front of me screaming and yelling “Save Yourself!” and I go as fast as I can, trying to touch the seat or….well, anything in there for that matter.

I hurry back just as the lights are dimming and huddle into the jacket. The lights come up.

The band hurries out with the same intensity and youthfulness as they had in earlier years. Not that I’d been born yet, even, but I can see it in their faces-this is what they were made to do.

“Kick Start My Heart” starts up full blast, and I’m going to unabashedly admit it now: I rocked out like an idiot. It’s my favorite song, and there is nothing like hearing those opening drop chords to get me going. I ran into the woman next to me several times, and she laughed when I apologized, saying twenty years ago she did the same thing. The song is in full swing: pyrotechnics going off left and right, Tommy Lee rocking hard on the drums, Mick Mars fulfilling his status as Guitar God, and Sixx sneering like he used to in the eighties. Vince Neil, though, still sounds like a muppet to me. Love the guy dearly, and would never replace him with anyone else, but he sounded out of breath, and Sixx and Mars usually took up the chorus vocals while he bounced around.

Finally the song ends and I settle down, and I get a good view of the set once the sparklers die out. The words Los Angeles are spelled out in large letters on the stage, props in themselves. The band is situated around them; even Lee’s drums are situated behind and above.

They shuffle through more of their more known songs, including “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”, “Same Old Situation” (which had antics from Sixx that involved him mocking a guy in the audience), and “Wild Side.”

“Saints…” brought out member of the other bands, singing along on stage, and it they were all rocking out hard to it.

But the night had slowly come to a close and we ended up leaving before the encore to avoid traffic. We had lost Kerri and her boyfriend earlier in the night, and glanced around, half expecting to find her passed out somewhere.

As we walk out to the parking lot, more explosives go off and we turn to hear Tommy Lee on piano, the beginning chords of “Home Sweet Home” starting up. We head back into the darkness and begin the uphill climb back to the parking lot, hearing the chattering of drunk concert goers with the same idea as us in the background. A few laughing adults, not kids, run past us, and begin snapping pictures of a few kids passed out next one of the port a potties.

All in all it’s been a good night, and as we follow the line of traffic down and through the mountainside, I find myself humming “Kickstart My Heart” and dreaming of hair mousse and brightly colored spandex.

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