Springsteen fans are assholes

[tikistitch]

...Actually, we lie. Just the ones from Marysville, a cousins-marrying burg a few miles north.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

To be brief, we arranged to attend The Boss's concert tonight at Key Arena with the Jersey-bred Mr. Tikistitch, on the assumption that such a venture would be fun.

The first sign of trouble was our seating (or rather, "seating," with scare quotes - but more on that later). "General admission." Now, maybe you're not as ancient as the tiki, but to us, the words general admission scream "Who concert," and the associated horrible trampling death. Do concerts actually do such arrangements nowadays? Even in the perposterously polite Northwest?

The security detail's performance tonight did not reassure. We had evidently missed the critical moment to obtain a wristband for early entry, and so were shunted over to a side entrance, to stand in the rain for an hour whilst security guards howled epithets at the buffoonish Jesus nuts hanging around the top of the stairs. And, yes, members of the uniformed security detail were literally howling. Time passed, and a Who concert-like mob began to gather behind us, and we became nervous at our position roughly between and increasingly impatient crowd and a bunch of glass doors. We told Mr. Tiki, we were thankful that Bruce's crowd was a bit older and more mellow. (Ha!) When we were finally let in, some 45 minutes after the stated time for doors opening, we were a bit taken aback that no one even attempted to search our bag. We then stumbled over to find we needed to stand in yet another line in order to gain entrance to the floor.

That was the next big, unhappy surprise: GA on the floor meant literally that, you were standing on the floor. For, however long a Springsteen concert might last. We found some handy Star Wars friends (we're everywhere, clearly!) and spread out our jackets on a patch of basketball court to wait for The Boss and his crew. They ended up coming on an hour behind schedule. Which somewhat, we fear, added to the tension. At some point, a group of three or four roughly spherical and quite loud middle-aged women gathered just to one side of us. They seemed completely oblivous to thte fact that their large shoes hurt when they trampled on tiki's hands. The resaon for the social dysfunction became clear when one of them spilled an airline-sized bottle of vodka noisily to the floor. We finally said a word to one of the globular maidens, something along the lines of "Hey!" In response, a man we hadn't noticed before leaned over Mr. Tikistitch (who hadn't said anything) and slurred, "You look like John Belushi! Do you have any heroin?"



We tried to ignore the boisterous bunch and at length, stood up with the rest of the crowd. At some point, while still waiting for Bruce, the John Belushi fan, who turned out to be a male counterpart of the boisterous ladies, began to mosh, slamming repeatedly into tiki. We feared it was a bit early for stage diving, and so repeated to him a witty, "Hey!" The man was definitely an odd-looking specimen, his head appeared molded out of smooth pink modeling clay, with two beady eyes stuck somewhere in the center. We had time to appreciate his visage, as he got in our face and hurled epithets at us. "This is a CONCERT!" he eloquently explained. We got back in his face and repeated, "Please quit jostling!" This created, to our distress, a fury of more epithets, directed towards both ourselves and Mr. Tiki. At length, Mr. Tiki gallantly directed us to stand to the other, non-clay-man side of him, and remarked sotto voce to us, "It's amazing that the guy's ankle bracelet will let him come this far south."

Thankfully, some moments later, St. Bruce decided to make an appearance, starting off with "Trapped," a favorite obscure number. The E Streeters plowed efficiently, if a bit prefunctorily, through some hits and newer numbers, finally embarking on a special favorite, "Because the Night."

It was at this point that things turned from bad to much worse. Evidently, one of the spherical harridans was Ankle Bracelet's spouse, and, evidently fearing that the shameful fact of her husband's tiny penis was out when tiki would not be intimidated, had started whining to said husband that Mr. Tiki that he was standing in front of her. Ankle Bracelet took up the challenge, and began a campaign of intimidation against our not easily intimidated spouse, actually going to the extent of blowing in Mr. Tiki's ear (yes, like a naughty 8-year-old) and then screaming "DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT," when he received in return a Mr. Tiki Special Glare. When Dennis the Menace-inspired hee-larious antics didn't achieve the required effect, Ankle Bracelet then resorted to physical action, first pushing Mr. Tiki hard in the shoulder, and, when that just evoked a bemused giggle, KICKING OUR SPOUSE - HARD - IN THE LEG.

Where were the security dudes? Uh, good question.

We grabbed on to our spouse and hauled ourselves out of the middle of the crowd, looking for some Key Areans security blueshirts, who, upon being informed of an assault and battery which had just taken place in the arena, did promptly, NOTHING.

Thanks, Key Arena. Thanks, Bruce.

Though, oddly enough, from the back of the floor, we actually ended up having a better view of the goings on than when pinned into the 5th or so row behind that odd grey-haired guy who kept staring up at the ceiling instead of the stage. As to the concert itself, well, it was rather hard to concentrate after the assault, though it seemed competent but perfunctory. Bruce did an exciting but-not-too-exciting version of Rosalita. The concert ran two hours, plus a half hour encore set. After the encore set, the house lights went up, and everybody immediately turned and ran for the exits, which was also kind of disappointing. Don't people want extra encores any more?

Based on our experience, we'll never do general admission again. We were also a bit taken aback at the seating. Key Arena supposedly has no bad seats, but there were plenty of seats up near the rafters, at a dizzying height, including a set fully in back of the stage ("Perfect for viewing Max Weinberg's head," as our friend put it). We're still not sure why the hell they didn't put a bunch of folding chairs out on the floor - it just seemed lazy.

Adding: Another odd note was the between-song patter from The Boss, which was at a minimum, since most songs in the tight set ran one into another. But during on aside, Bruce mentioned that he was concerned about what had been happening in the country during the past 8 years, mentioning "Illegal wiretapping." "But," he assured, "The E Street Band is here to do something about that!" ORLY, Springsteen lays out the necessitiy of passage of an ammended FISA bill in a song? tiki, impressed, yelled out for Bruce's special number regarding monetary policy, but was rebuffed. Let's reduce the prime rate yo! Next time, we'll have to make a cardboard sign.

Comments

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to a major concert in the US in ages, but GEEZE LOUISE, the inbreds-! And I hate standing concerts. They're a fairly common occurence in Japan, at least to my knowledge, and I just can't do them--my body just can't take it (especially standing on concrete).

I attended a David Bowie concert in 1987 or 88 in Philadelphia that was in a stadium, and we were on the floor rather than in the seats, but they DID put folding chairs on the floor. After the concert started, of course, everybody was STANDING on the chairs, but even so, it was nice that they were there.

You guys both have my sympathy--maybe a nasty e-mail or letter to Key Arena would help?

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

I actually heard a good explanation for the lack of folding chairs. Our friend related being at a concert (I believe it was Springsteen, though I may be wrong) with GA where everyone on the floor basically KNOCKED OVER the folding chairs once the music began. I also shudder to imaging what the hillbillies would have done with folding chairs after a few more airline-sized vodkas.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Uh, wow, what a crappy experience.

[mmymoon.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds wretched! I am so not a "mingle with the crowd" sort of person. Poor Tiki and Tiki!

(Of course, I'd pretty much rather just stay at home and listen to the CD instead of attending most concerts larger than a nightclub. I'm laaaame.)