Rock Concerts

[Martin Hash]

scan0001.jpg

I use the term “banana boat mentality” to describe extremely self-sufficient people. I developed this term to explain my brother, Marshall. The story goes: If I asked Marshall to buy me ten kilos of cocaine, he’d fly to Bogotá, Colombia with a paper bag full of cash; find somebody selling cocaine; and smuggle it back on a banana boat if he had to. This seemingly improbably analogy is supposed to represent supreme self-sufficiency in the face of the unknown – most people could not deliver.

I had a special formula for making my sons self-sufficient in chaotic situations - they were allowed to go to rock concerts by themselves. Mostly, we didn’t worry too much, the bands were usually unknown and the venues were small... Then the heavy metal band, Metallica, came to town, and the kids wanted to go. My wife, Gwynne, was somewhat apprehensive that my pre-driving son, Heath, and my pre-high school son, Haven, would be okay. She wanted me to go too. Hey, I like Metallica, it was a good excuse to go myself.

Metallica was the largest concert Portland had ever seen. It was held at the horse track for the open space. After waiting in line through a half-block of security body searches, I felt like we were entering “Escape from New York” – once inside, there was no law enforcement. We were surrounded by a small tent city of pavilions containing drug paraphernalia, tattoo parlors, and breast painting.

By the time the warm-up band, System of the Down, went off-stage, the massive swell of on-lookers was chanting, “Metallica! Metallica! Metallica!” There’s something new at concerts since I was a kid, called a “mosh pit”. Mosh pits are a group of large, angry young men who stand just below the stage and beat the hell out of each other. Heaven help the poor bystander, just there to listen to the music, who gets too close to a mosh pit. Also, people stand, waving their arms above their heads, packed so tight that some folks dive from the stage onto the outstretched hands and glide across the wave of humanity as if it were an ocean – this is called “crowd surfing”. Trusting your life to drug-induced, hysterical, sociopaths does not seem like a good idea to me.

Around me was more black leather and chrome studs than you can see in a body-piercing shop. I was thinking that maybe I should find my kids and get out of there, but locating anyone seemed hopeless, even if I could move freely. I was hovering at the back of the crowd, looking anxious, when someone yelled, “Whadda you doin’ here?” and pounded me on the back. I turned to see a long-haired, fu-manchu bearded guy holding a beer and grinning drunkenly.

I didn’t want to appear more out of place than I already felt, so I said, “I’m here with my kids.”

“Sure you are,” the drunk winked, nodding with his chin at the naked girls lined up at the breast painting booth just behind us.

“No, really…”, I stuttered, and then, miraculously, I saw my oldest son floating by, crowd surfing.

I pointed him out to the drunk. “There, see? That’s my son, Heath,” before Heath’s prone form disappeared into the melee.

“Wow,” said the drunk, surprised. “You let your high school kid crowd surf?”

I smiled back weakly. Then, to compound the outrageous coincidence, I saw my youngest son crowd surfing in front of the stage. Unthinking, I yelled at the drunk, “And there’s my son, Haven!”

The drunk’s mouth hung open. “Jesus, man,” he said. “I’ve never seen a grade school kid surfing a mosh pit before.”

I just nodded, as if these things happened every day, but I was numb with concern. I couldn’t wait to gather my boys up and get safely home.

I never go with my kids to concerts anymore... I don’t even wanna know.