Run To The Hills

Those who know me in real life know that, despite being a big music lover, I do not go to many concerts. Those who know me in real life also know that I have the worst speaking voice in the history of mankind and so prefer for all my interaction to occur via email, text message, or dance. But we will save this for another time.

I’m not exactly sure why I don’t go to concerts more often. I’d like to give an understandable explanation like, "When I was little, my uncle took me to a Bon Jovi concert because I loved Bon Jovi and then, long story short, Bon Jovi killed my uncle. Twice. So I don’t like to go to concerts."

But unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), this did not happen. Instead, I think the main reasons why I don’t like to go to concerts are because a) I am lazy and b) rarely does the musician/band live up to my expectations.

Concerts are a lot of work - you have to find someone to go with, buy the tickets, travel to wherever the hell the show is, find your seats or stand the whole time, pay $7 per beer which makes you have to piss, then halfway through you’re checking your watch and sending text messages to your buddies about your date, like "I think she has hairier balls than I do" and "She smells like a little like cat piss and a lot like old sex" - it’s just unpleasant for everyone.

But all this doesn’t mean that I never attend concerts. My first concert was Paula Abdul with Color Me Badd opening. My second was the Grateful Dead (how’s that for progress?). I’ve seen Elvis Costello almost a dozen times, Glenn Tilbrook a bunch, then a variety of different acts, from Phish and Page/Plant to Wilco and the Who.

(Pretty smooth with the P’s and W’s, right? That’s why they pay me the big bucks. Real writer-shit, right there.)

So I occasionally go out to venues to see some live music. But it is rare that a perfect storm develops, providing the fan (or, as in my case, the jerk with nothing better to do on a Friday night) with the opportunity to see some great live music, in an incredible location, among at once some of the nerdiest and most frightening people in North America.

Last Friday, the 13th of October, was such a perfect storm. My friends and I saw Iron Maiden at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And no, I’m not joking.

Nor am I an Iron Maiden fan. I was aware of Iron Maiden just as I am aware of white women who only date black men - I know they’re out there, and I know they’re not to be taken seriously. And like white women who only date black men, everything I need to know about Iron Maiden I learned from VH1 Classic. I knew that they’re death metal, or at least heavy, heavy metal (I’ve seen them also described as "doom metal"). I knew about Eddie, the band’s mascot, a giant monster who appears on stage and randomly hangs out for a song or two, much to the delight of the crowd. And I knew they were loud. And that’s about all I knew.

The idea of going to see Maiden was suggested by my old roommate Rob. His buddy, Jeff, who can only (but accurately) be described as a Southern metalhead, was driving up from Virginia to see the show. This so humored Rob that he suggested a bunch of us go, just to check it out. The prospect of some serious comedy at an Iron Maiden show on Friday the 13th in October - in New Jersey, no less - was too much to pass up and so after work on Friday afternoon, my friends Rob, Jeremy, Corinne and I met up and soon were in Corinne’s car driving to the arena. Ten miles and two hours later, we had arrived. It was time to rock our balls off.

Before I got to the concert, I did a little research, downloading two dozen or so of Iron Maiden’s songs from some Russian metalhead website. I figured I should have at least some idea of what kind of music I’d be listening to when some guy with tattoos was punching me in the face.

And to be honest, I kind of dug Maiden’s music. Sure, it’s not my typical cup of tea, but it has its place. The song titles alone are worth it. Maiden is responsible for such masterpieces as "Hallowed Be Thy Name", "The Number of the Beast", "Sea of Madness" (not to be confused with "Can I Play With Madness"), and my personal favorite, "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter" (I’m such a sucker for internal rhyme). Another one of their songs is called "Alexander the Great" and I remember when listening to it for the first time being surprised that the song was about...Alexander the Great. Literally, the lyrics talk about Philip of Macedon and Asia Minor and the Tigris River and all kinds of crazy shit. This, for whatever reason, shocked me.

(I mean, am I a moron for not expecting the song to be about Alexander the Great? Perhaps I thought it was a metaphor or something. I brought this up to my buddy Rob and he said, "It’s like they want to teach you before they blow your brains out." Sometimes Brian can be really wise.)

Bonus points for the band because their lead singer is named Bruce Dickinson. No, not THE Bruce Dickinson.

Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, according to his website, enjoys fencing and flying planes and has written two books about a character named Lord Iffy Boatrace. Not surprisingly, Bruce is also interested in Aleister Crowley and even wrote a movie script about him. And it goes without saying that he too, when he puts his pants on, makes gold records. I don’t know about you guys, but I kinda want to fuck him.

Because traffic in Jersey on a Friday evening is deplorable, we got to the concert at 8pm, just as doors were opening. This made us kinda sad, because we were hoping to take in the hoi poloi at your typical Iron Maiden tailgate in Jersey. It wasn’t a total loss, since it didn’t take long to locate a lot of bad hair, a lot of drinking, and a lot of people who still live with their parents.

Maiden fans on the whole were not that scary. I was expecting deviants and devil worshippers. I made a point to change out of my work clothes and into something more casual before going into the show, fearing that wearing my Banana Republic slacks and Brooks Brothers shirt would be the equivalent of putting a "Rape Me" sign on my chest. Instead, the crowd was not scary but rather stuck in 1983. I’m not saying there weren’t some people there who have spent significant time in prison, but for the most part, I felt safe. I even put the "Rape Me" sign on anyway and wasn’t even approached. Which sucked.

Another downside about arriving so late to the concert was that I didn’t get messed up enough. I do not like to drink at concerts, as I have a bladder the size of a three year old girl’s. So I forego beer because I don’t like to go take a piss every other song. However, before shows I do greatly enjoy those funny cigarettes that make you hungry and happy. But my friend Corinne has some ridiculous rule about not smoking pot in her car (fucking narc), so I and a few others were only able to enjoy after our arrival. The point: I didn’t get high enough. I was not thrilled about this but would soon forgot about it. Because I was about to get my cock rocked off.

I don’t really have a joke about this but I’m not ashamed to say that Iron Maiden totally fucking rocked. They were pretty much what I expected from listening to their stuff: a singer, three (!) guitarists, a bass player, and a drummer on a set made to look like a cave, rocking the fuck out. Hard, heavy, loud. So, awesome.

I am also pretty sure that Iron Maiden was the inspiration for mockumentary band Spinal Tap. I’m sure that Christopher Guest and Co. took elements from other rock bands of the genre and era, but Maiden had to be tops on the list.

Specifically, guitarist Janick Gers, is the real life David St. Hubbins. And not just because they look the same, but because Janick was acting like quite like David does in Spinal Tap, throwing his guitar in the air, swinging it around, pointing it at the crowd with his tongue out, sticking it between his legs - pretty much every ridiculous on-stage move you can imagine. My buddy Jeremy and I decided that there was no way he was actually playing guitar, because when he wasn’t carrying on, he was strumming out of time and he was barely doing so anyway. It’s like they turned off the volume on his guitar and said, "Go and have some fun out there."

(Worth noting is that minutes after Jeremy and I finished having this discussion, Rob tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Corinne and I were just talking and there’s no way that blonde guitarist on the right is actually playing." So it wasn’t just us. Good job, Janick. Way to sell it, way to sell it.)

The Metal Chick is a type of woman I had been previously unfamiliar with. She’s the oldest, lamest sister of the Heroin Chic Girl and the Hipster Fucker. She’s got some tats like her youngest sister the Hipster Fucker and loves drugs as much as her middle sister the Heroin Chic Girl, but she’s drastically different in other ways. Her hair is out of style, but not in an ironic way like her baby sister’s. She’s crazy, but not in the "I’ll kill myself" way of her middle sister (indeed, her type of craziness is more "I’ll kill you" than anything else).

But the Metal Chick is not without her charms, and first and foremost of these is her sexy-ass body. I know, you may be shocked to read this, but I was surprised at how many mid-30’s Metal Chicks at this concert had very good bodies, nice boobies and heinies built from years of being angry and rocking. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a fair share of 200-pounders sucking on bongs with vast stretches of inked-up pale flesh exposed from their ill-fitting Maiden shirts, but on the whole, I was surprised. And happy. Because I like good bodies, you know, because I don't have one.

My friends and I sat in front of one of these good-bodied Metal Chicks and by the end of the concert - between her gyrating and rocking the fuck out and the speed and intensity of the music - I was planning on committing a sex crime. The thought of going back to that Metal Chick’s dingy apartment in Westfield, New Jersey to fuck her on her kitchen floor while listening to "Run to the Hills" was too much to bear and I asked my buddy Jeremy to start making out with me to turn me off. He complied. Without getting too into it, talk about your all-time backfires. Let’s just move on.

Another group of fans near us was a family of Mexicans, maybe a dozen of them. What’s so interesting about this was that they were all exactly the same. I don’t mean that they all looked the same, but that they were the same. It was impossible to differentiate not only their ages, but also their sexes. It was thirteen of the same exact person. The only reason I know that some of them were women was because couples were paired off and cuddling. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known. There were all the same height (maybe 5′0") with the same hairstyle and all wearing similar clothes. It was both fascinating and nightmarish. And when the lights came off, after Maiden had the crowd on its feet through its raging encore, I couldn’t get away from those little Mexicans fast enough. Scary little motherfuckers, they were.

While it took us two hours to travel ten miles on our way to the arena, it took us only about fifteen minutes to make it back home. We were all pretty pumped up and so decided to go out that night. We split up, each of us retreating to drop our shit at our homes, shower, change, and then head out.

It was your typical Friday night for the most part. I started drinking after the concert and fixed myself a way-too-potent vodka red bull while showering and singing "Fear of the Dark" and soon was at the bar with the rest of the crew and some additional friends. Rob’s buddy, Jeff, the Southern metalhead whose idea it was to see Iron Maiden in the first place, was so happy that I actually enjoyed the concert that he kept buying me drinks all night. I thought, based on their color and taste, that these were vodka tonics. In my inebriated state, I was confused. They were vodka red bulls.

Remember, I am a pussy with caffeine - one diet coke will keep me going all day long. I had already had a red bull that night. Then I had at least four between the hours of 2am and 4am. Not good.

The result? After getting home, I was up until 7am. I sat in the shower for an hour reading (or rather, trying to read), then, like I normally do when I'm drunk, decided to cut my own hair. As you might guess, I did not do a very good job and so had to get a haircut yesterday to fix my mistakes. Of which there were several.

When I finally fell asleep, I slept for only three hours before waking up, feeling like I could run a marathon. This feeling lasted only a few hours on Saturday, and when it went away, I crashed hard - so hard that I didn’t even make it out Saturday night. Ugh.

(Though I made up for it by drinking from 1pm until 11pm on Sunday.)

All in all, Iron Maiden was a great experience. So much so that while I don’t think I’d follow them around the country, I would probably go see them again. Next time, I’d get there earlier, bring a lot more weed, and study up on what turns Metal Chicks on. Because I want me one of those.

(Except if those Mexicans are there again. I’m not going near those sons of bitches. Because that shit was messed up.)