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Enjoy it while it lasts, showman.
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There are subtle, beautiful sunrise omens that can foretell the course of a day. You wake up to find your kitty lovingly nestled against your shins; you discover a crumpled, washered-and-dryered $20 lodged in your jeans; you flip on ESPN and your team miraculously came back from a five-run late-inning deficit. Then you walk into your bathroom to find 3 inches of water and flaky, beige vomit clogging the bathtub courtesy of Your Roommate Mat. Ah yes, today must be the pinnacle of this unforgettable, walking blackout of a cock-rockin' summer, the day that Metallica's Summer Sanitarium tour finally invades Seattle!
Reiterating the lineup is like opening the Ark of the Covenant: Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Deftones, Mudvayne. The hell with your face melting off; if some part of your body isn't larger than it was before you read that sentenceeyes, mouth, um, whateveryou just don't like music. Many of my hipster acquaintances suffer that ailment, patronizingly assessing my unassailable enthrallment with the Sanitarium much as they would a crush on an unattainable girl"We're all excited for you, Andrew. That's . . . super."
At least a few contemporaries shared the passion. My antagonistic new friend Ilyas e-mailed repeatedly during the week boasting of (a) backstage passes, (b) the orgiastic abuses that said passes entitle, and (c) "icebreakers" for Metallica, i.e. ,"Hey, Lars, I got an advance MP3 of 'St. Anger.' It rocks!" There evidently is a Christian God, because Ilyas' in fell through, fleecing him of his virility and the rest of us of an A-plus "hedonist on the inside" column.
I opted to embrace Sanitarium culture in a simpler, Hot Topic fashion with my +1, Kelley, but was frankly not prepared for her to pick me up wearing a Sharpied wife beater, upon which breast one read "Give," breast two "Me," and the midriff "Nookie!" Hell hath nothing on a woman's ironic infatuation with Fred Durst.
After hastily titivating my wife beater to honor Linkin Park with "One Step Closer 2 Tha Edge!!!" (critical detail: the "R" was backward) and vowing to drink until we were no longer embarrassed by our outfits, we arrived at Seahawks Stadium on Thursday afternoon to find a Trail of Beers stretching all the way past Safeco Field. Thirty thousand-odd concertgoers, one entrance. Adorable. Ever resourceful, Kelley and I strutted past the monster line to the bottleneck in front and squeezed inside, receiving pat downs about as thorough as a midnight ass slap from the flustered security. Too bad we forgot our flasks and/or digital recording devices and/or anthrax.
Deftones rewarded us with a restrained, artful set highlighted by an obscure Depeche Mode cover ("To Have and to Hold") and an ad lib of Gorillaz's "Clint Eastwood." It's nice to see the band evolving beyond the woefully immature dreads-and-shreds thuggery that poisoned past performan . . . wait a minute! Was this Summer Sanitarium or a fucking TUPPERWARE PARTY?! I wanted "woefully immature" and I wanted it by the buttload!!! Where were the boobies and belching and tongues between fingers?!
Answer: The merch stand, where the following exchange of ideas ensued as two decrepit, aging burnouts noticed Kell's shirt.
Decrepit Burnout 1: You want nookie, huh?
Kelley: I do, but I'm saving myself for Fred.
Decrepit Burnout 1 (pointing to friend): He'll give you some nookie.
Decrepit Burnout 2: I would, but I'm guessing you're about 17, right?
Kelley: That's right.
Moi: We're going to the prom.
Decrepit Burnout 2: Exactly. No thanks.
Decrepit Burnout 1: Yeah, but . . . she wants nookie!
It was clearly time to double fist large importeds and bow down to Linkin Park, the most inspirational, kid-tested, mother-approved, no-curses rap-rock sextet in the galaxy. Co-frontman Chester Bennington made an instant fan out of Kelley, working the white boxers/sweaty butt cheeks/baggy pants angle. We participated in the time-honored stadium-rock tradition of calling a random friend during the hit single, raising the cell in the air triumphantly, screeching the band's name, then abruptly hanging up. (Naturally, he didn't understand a word of it.)
When the LB kicked off with "Hot Dog," a prophecy was fulfilled: They were bombarded with any projectile the crowd had. But Durst shrugged it off, inviting Lars Ulrich out to half-ass Metallica passages with the Bizkit's not-goofy-enough new guitarist, dedicating "Break Stuff" to "Britney fuckin' Spears," working the entire floor while covering the Who's "Behind Blue Eyes," andkill me now, Godbeing a total showman.
Maybe it was the cessation of beer sales, or maybe it's the fact that they're total assholes and everyone still loves them, but Metallica's opening salvo of "Battery," "Master of Puppets," "Harvester of Sorrow," "Sanitarium," and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" somehow didn't annihilate us. Kelley and I spent most of the set adjusting our shirts (her back: "Fred D. 2003"; mine: "Linkin F**kin' Park"). By the time Metallica dropped "Sad but True," it was clear that we needed to find an after party. Preferably with Chester. Flaky vomit mandatory.
THE BEST PART about disseminating a midsummer alternative-weekly music awards fest maiden voyage into eight Pioneer Square clubs: gratuitous midday inebriation minus the sunstroke. The worst part: claustrophobia, suffocation, potential last-will-and-testament stuff. Actually, the worst part kinda goes hand in hand with the second best part: getting fucking sweaty and rocked on the day of the Lord.
