I meant to write a post about this last week but never did. Needless to say, God made sure to remind me. Some may just say it’s the universe but since since I have committed to my faith I say it’s due to God. Sending me a message to let me know I was supposed to write about this. Nevertheless I digress and will get on with the point. While riding home from work the song Falling away from me by Korn was playing on the radio. Same instance as last week when riding home heard the song and it reminded me of the very first concert I had gone to without adult supervision. It was back in the summer of 2000, I was 18 and had graduated from high school. At that time in my life, I was a huge Korn fan and that summer they were on a pretty decent line up… or at least to me at that time, it was a pretty good line up. It was the very first Summer Sanitarium tour. It was headlined by Metallica and the co head line was Korn. The rest of the acts were Kid Rock, System of a Down, and Powerman 5000. One of my best friends at that time and I had purchased tickets to it. They were playing at Foxboro Stadium, which since then, is now actually Gillette Stadium. We had gotten some tickets way up in the bleachers, tickets that these days I don’t even tend to spend the money for, unless its like Pearl Jam. I usually will get some tickets that are further back for them… nothing to crazy though, you’ll never find me in the nosebleeds. Call me a snob but I don’t think I would take free tix for nosebleed seats. I just don’t see how you can enjoy it being that far back. At that point it’s just for the sake of saying I was there I feel, but how much of an experience is it? I’d like to hear from any of you in the comments if you have seen a concert in nosebleeds and what it’s like. Is it to you, actually worth it? Is it still an experience? Maybe it is worth going to see a bad in nosebleeds. I suppose part of it depends on the band as well. Anyways, Mr. Squirrel Brain here goes on about some other crap and away from the main point of the story. So, where were we? That’s right, we were up in the bleachers. So we were up there hanging out and listening to the acts, watching everything from above and just itching to want to get down on the floor. There were a couple other of people we knew from school that had gone to the show as well and we actually were sitting by them and they said screw it at one point and decided to go down to try to get down on the floor. Let’s break briefly from that and do a quick breakdown on the bands up to this point. We had seen Powerman 5000 who I thought were pretty good even seeing them from up high, then it was System of a Down, they were ok, not as good as I was hoping. Then, an artist I absolutely fucking loathe now, Kid Rock came on and when he came out, first song he did was Bawitdaba. I won’t lie at that time in my life, that song I actually liked. So he comes on stage and a big inflatable middle finger blew up, fog billowed around the stage and Kid Rock came out in a red jumpsuit and shouted out “My name is Kid, Rock!” and jumped on the stage and a quick blast of pyrotechnics blasted and he was off to the races. I will say it was a good start to his act and admittedly he was pretty solid but what stuck out about it was the beginning, but that wasn’t the most memorable thing. No, that’s yet to come. So anyways, Kid Rock had performed and Korn was up next. Our other friends decided to try to get down onto the floor. My friend and I at the time were being pansies and were worried if we tried to get down there they’d kick us out so we didn’t follow our friends down. So, here we are up there and Korn comes out. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what they opened with. I want to say for some reason it was Shoots and Ladders but I could be completely off. I know they played it but I can’t remember when. As we started watching them play they got to playing Falling away from me which was off the album they had released Issues. There was a music video of it and in the video there is a point where there is a bunch of people jumping up and down in unison, pumping their fist. Well surer than shit, when they started playing that song, it was like watching the video in real life. Thousands of people on the floor jumping in unison and pumping their fist. It was really something amazing to see and something I’ll always remember. I think seeing that was what finally encourage me and my friend to head down to try to get on the floor to catch some of the band we had really gone to go see. That’s not any kind of slight on Metallica, just at that time we were there to see Korn and Metallica was just the awesome cherry on top. So lo and behold, we actually get down on the floor and there wasn’t any issues with that and we got to catch the end of Korn’s set and we got to watch Metallica as well. The story’s not over there though because being dumb and it being our first real concert when Metallica got done, we were anticipating them to come back out for an encore. There were some big songs still to play, particularly One which was what I really wanted to hear. My friend wanted to hear Enter Sandman. We had a 2.5 hour drive back home ahead of us, likely more fighting the traffic to get out of there. After waiting for a bit and Metallica still not coming out we decided to hell with it and head to the parking lot to get a head start as everyone else was still waiting for them to come back out. We were dumb and thought they were waiting in vain… nope. I shit you not as we get out, no admission back in once you leave, we get to the parking lot and I hear the opening notes of One. My friend and I looked at each other and were like well lesson learned. And it was. I don’t think I’ve missed an encore since, lol. I ended up finding out later on that my cousin was at that concert too. She had stayed and said that the last song they played was Enter Sandman. So my friend and I both missed the songs we wanted to hear but hell, overall it was a great show at the time and an experience I’ll always have some memory of. Anyways, that’s really all for now.
Basket of Thoughts 