1

Concertgoing has become bourgeois. (Thank you Madonna!)

You dress up nice. Park in some structure, or on some line-painted macadam. You enter a venue with carpeting. You eat overpriced imitation gourmet food. You applaud politely.

At the end of the evening, you feel you’ve been entertained. Not really so different from your parents going to the opera. Or a classical concert.

You probably went to college. Are carrying both a beeper and a cell phone. You consider yourself a professional. You’re cruising high on the new economy. You own stock. Probably an SUV or a truck. Everywhere you look you see people just like you. You think the whole country has taken a huge step upscale.

But you’re wrong. I know. Because last night I saw the rest of society. At the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion.

2

You wouldn’t let these people in your house. You don’t even want them in your neighborhood. Who knows what trouble they might create. Who knows what they might break.

But it’s not only you. It’s big business too.

Big business has created a rubber room just for these people. Out in the middle of nowhere. Where they can’t fuck anything up. Where the only people they can hurt are each other.

Used to be the hard rock acts played the Forum. Somewhere in L.A.

No longer. Now they play this godforsaken facility in the middle of nowhere.

I’d heard it was a dust bowl. I was almost SCARED to go there. Way out of my purview. So far away you were on the route to Las Vegas. But my nephew. He e-mailed me. Please, could I get him tickets to see AC/DC?

I’d never seen them. After all, they’d peaked and fallen almost twenty years ago. But the new album. I was into a bit of it. It recaptured the old magic.

He had the date wrong. Turns out they were playing the same day he was moving. But he told me his mother owed him. He’d make it happen. He e-mailed me. He could go.

3

Used to be you could drive in Southern California. Mapquest told us the Blockbuster Pavilion was an hour nineteen away. Maybe if you were in George Jetson’s jet car.

The freeway was jammed from the moment we got on. In godforsaken Covina, it was totally gridlocked.

It felt like we were driving into the heart of darkness. Those low-slung industrial buildings that one feels can be put up in a weekend. Power plants.

FINALLY, we saw the next freeway. I-15. But after making the transition, Andrew freaked out. The sign said "Las Vegas".

I told him not to worry. That at the last suburb in Salt Lake, the sign said "Los Angeles".

But I WAS worried. Very soon we ran out of vestiges of civilization. We were ascending mountains. I told him to make a note of the odometer. If we hit ten miles, we were going to reconsider. Maybe it was south, not north.

But just shy of the limit, there was a sign.

And then the freeway slowed down to a crawl. There was a flashing sign. If you were going to the AC/DC concert, get off here.

It was like those aliens on "The Twilight Zone". "To Serve Man". They were corralling all of us into one place to DEVOUR us!

They charged us $7.00 to park. I paid it. But a thought went through my brain. I remember when there used to be a rationalization to parking fees. When there was a lack of space. When there was an improved lot. But like some Woody Guthrie ballad, we were out here in the middle of nowhere. In this giant dust bowl. Spontaneously Andrew said "I’m glad I didn’t wash my car."

And we’re driving down down down the flood plain. We finally reached the end of the row of parked cars and pulled his Acura up.

And when we opened the doors, we were confronted with a blast of air so hot and thick, you’d think the AC/DC caravan had brought the devil with them.

There was what some of us affectionately refer to as "tailgating".

But this was no fall college day. Not even the parking lot of some NFL stadium. Rather there were trucks of all sizes and vintages, and hanging on them were the least attractive citizens of our country. Encased in leather. Covered in tattoos. Fueling up on alcohol. Hard rock emanating from their vehicles. It was like they were hoods in the fifties getting ready to rumble.

And then we had to hike from the car to the venue.

Not that one could tell exactly where the venue was. The parking lot dude gave us the wrong directions. There were a few structures on a hill. People were moseying in that direction. So we followed them. Like hiking Masada in the middle of the day.

And when we got to the gate, there was a woman imploring us to drink up, for no bottles or cans would be allowed inside. The dude next to me held up his Bud and said "You mean this??"

Then we were all frisked.

And for the first time, I was glad this was done. To remove knives and guns.

And then we’re on the paved landscape of what appears to be a junior carnival. With that same creepy carny feel.

There’s food. But this ain’t the Universal Amphitheatre food.

And there’s some Hell’s Angel type stirring a giant cauldron making "kettle popcorn".

I went for the bathroom. Then tried to find the venue. I stumbled on to a giant field. I finally realized this was the lawn. In back of the permanent seats. It was dark as night. The Manson Family could kill a few attendees and never be pegged in court.

We picked up some food from a concession. I thought it was smoky. But turns out every concession had screen-netting surrounding it. So you couldn’t riot. Jump over, reach over and steal the food and the money.

Then we sat on a concrete wall surrounding the one barely surviving bush that passed for landscaping. And as we ate, I took a good look at the crowd.

And it was like nothing I’d ever seen.

The girls. They were wearing the fashion of the day. Halter tops.

But they had beer bellies hanging over their jeans. They weren’t even embarrassed. It was like all those obesity reports in the news had finally come to roost. Like everybody had a bad body and gotten used to it.

And if they weren’t overweight, they were scrawny with lined faces looking like their lives had been painful. Raising three kids on minimum wage.

The guys. Well, I didn’t look them in the eye. Maybe for fear they’d find me looking at their girlfriends, figuring I was checking them out, and beat the shit out of me.

I got a giant overpriced lemonade. I didn’t care if it was watered-down. This reminded me of being in Israel. Where if you didn’t drink. If you weren’t prepared with fluids. You’d die a miserable death in the desert. It was just that hot.

Then we heard the strains of music and entered the…what shall I call it. Field? Amphitheatre? The performance area.

Slash and his band were playing. They were loud and lousy. With a lead singer out of the David Lee Roth/Jim Dandy school. Passable voice with sub-hackneyed lyrics spewing inanities between songs. And Slash? You figure it’s got to be a clone. You couldn’t believe this was the guy who used to play with Axl. Even "Mr. Brownstone" was curiously flat.

Thankfully they were over. And we went to the other side of the performance space. Where it was so gridlocked, and so hot, I was on the verge of freaking out. The space was smaller than a junior high school cafeteria, yet it was peopled by enough humans to defeat the Huns. The facilities were woefully inadequate. You couldn’t get near the bathroom. And if you did, you’d be inside, and with the heat and piss and thick air, you’d probably pass out. Get a drink? You could be in line til next Tuesday. Andrew gave me a look and said he was going back to his seat.

After wandering over to the other side. And getting completely bizarred. I too went back to my plastic seat with ironically enough legroom and waited for the band too.

The roadies were fiddling. One let out a riff in imitation of Angus. The crowd came flowing back into the performance area. The lights dimmed.

And then, instead of the music just beginning, some lame deejay came out and gave an introduction.

Then out of the wings came the little devil himself. He moved his right arm up and down and something unmistakable came out. Gives me a shiver just thinking about it. I figured it would be "Thunderstruck". Which starts off the double live CD package.

But no. On a hot September night. When I had so much anxiety packed in amongst this throng that I was lamenting I didn’t bring my cell phone so I could call my shrink if I had a crippling anxiety attack. Angus Young hit those strings and played the intro, that strange melding of pop and hard rock. Of the song that broke the band through. That both Republicans and Democrats approve of. That even Paul Shaffer covered. Like Moses come down from the mountaintop, Angus Young held forth the tablets. And written upon them was "YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG"!!!!

4

Usually when I go to these concerts I stand out. There aren’t many other people forty seven years old. Not many who’ve lost as much hair.

But these people must have figured if I was there, I was one of them.

Everybody from twenty to fifty. These people didn’t own a rap record. If hip-hop ever came out of their car stereos, it was by mistake while they were dialing down to the hard rock station.

They hadn’t gone to college. They were making their livings with their hands. As secretaries. They’d NEVER fit in with the system. Were never going to. The American Dream? All they had were nightmares. Their futures??? The future was NOW! It was about partying. Good times.

It was like I saw the accidental pregnancy statistic in front of my very eyes. These weren’t the responsible kids who handed their homework in on time. They were like steel balls in the pinball game of life. They were too busy getting bounced around, and coping with the effects thereof, to worry about birth control. And hell, the machine could always tilt, and then where the fuck would you be.

And ironically. Even though these artifacts of the underside of America were covered in ink, the Aussies onstage who’d stripped in the overpowering heat, showed not a tattoo.

It was like they were of a slightly higher class. They spoke to both kings and serfs. The kings at the record companies who sold their albums and kept their career afloat. And the serfs who made it all possible. The band, onstage, away from crushing throng, were at the nexus of corporate America and the people who kept it all humming. This band was keeping the economy rolling. Money to the venue, the promoter, the transportation company.

And standing there I realized my dream of being a rock star had finally died. I didn’t want to be a Young brother riding around in a bus year after year playing to these people.

But somehow THEY could do it. It wasn’t about glamour. It was a job, but that wasn’t it exactly. Well, maybe it was. Somebody had to calm the masses down. Be the opiate. AC/DC was channeling all the frustration, all the BULLSHIT, into music. That could be celebrated by a public that might be uneducated, but was not dumb. They knew they were getting screwed over. They knew they were at the bottom. But they also knew they could cut loose and enjoy this aural assault in a way that the uptight upper classes never could.

5

THUNDER!!
THUNDER!!
THUNDER!!!

Most bands only have one hit. Or maybe a few. And in concert these are surrounded by filler so execrable I usually no longer go.

But AC/DC. With no more than the basics. Drums, bass, rhythm guitar and lead. And vocals. Were pounding out this sound. As coherent as Slash’s aggregation was impenetrable. Out of the cabinet after cabinet of Marshalls came the pure essence.

Not that anybody was looking, but I didn’t worry about being self-conscious.

It was one concert I was glad to stand at. I’d throw my arm in the air involuntarily. I oohed and ahhed.

Brian Johnson was the cheerleader. Angus the star. The rest of the band was support.

You’d think they could go no higher. But when I heard the intro to "Thunderstruck". Played over and over again by Angus at the center of the stage. Proving with his nimble fingers he truly was one of the greats. It was like I was shot with adrenaline through my back. A needle entering my spine at my coccyx and then shooting straight up to my head and on to my extremities.

One could try to analyze it. But that wasn’t what it was about.

There was no posturing. It was all in service to the music. Hit after hit after hit. My anxiety fell away. I was on a religious mission as zealously felt as that of the religious right. This was godhead. This was what counted.

And I turned around to survey the landscape. And I saw something out of a John Carpenter movie. Kind of like that "Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry". Way back. The attendees were surrounded by fire. There was smoke. It was freaky. Like the devil had his pot ready for us.

I started to freak. If there truly was fire. And the audience panicked. Where in the hell would we GO??!!! I’d been crushed at a Chambers Brothers concert back in 1970. One of the most frightening moments of my life. I know that it’s only by luck there aren’t more Who and Pearl Jam disasters.

The businessman. Just pile these idiots in there and count the green. Let them fight it out.

Kinda like Woodstock ’99.

I heard my father’s voice in my head. "GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!"

But my nephew. I didn’t want to ruin his evening. I didn’t want to be a wimp.

Then seemingly everybody was turned away from the stage. Checking out these fires. I felt the tension building.

I decided to check it out for myself.

There were endless lines for the concessions still. I finally got a vantage point. Just behind the permanent seats. Were THREE bonfires. With the same idiots who mosh to broken bones and destroyed property dancing ’round.

They’d been going on for nigh half an hour by this point.

Where was SECURITY? Where was the FIRE DEPARTMENT???

NOWHERE!

I didn’t know who to be pissed at more. The generation that would do something so stupid or the crass generation that didn’t care because they were making the bucks.

And on one hand I told myself the fires couldn’t spread. For there was nothing but dirt back there (yeah, right, pay thirty five bucks and be forced to sit on dirt where because of a low rake angle you couldn’t really see the stage). On the other, if anything DID catch fire, it would take WEEKS to put the conflagration out. For it was that fucking hot and dry.

I watched. I played a mental game and convinced myself the fires wouldn’t spread (and what in hell were they BURNING??) and retired to my seat.

6

A bell was lowered from the ceiling. And the band started playing the lead-off track to the best hard rock album ever recorded. HELLS BELLS!

Maybe the success was attributable to Mutt Lange. But the frontman, the visible appendage, always gets the glory.

But maybe AC/DC deserved it. They’d been slugging it out for close to three decades. And there was almost classic stuff on the new album.

And so much time has gone by, I’ve gotten so old, that not only can I remember when "Back In Black" was released, but ALL the times I played it thereafter. On a boombox in my car without a stereo on the way home from a day of skiing in the San Bernardino Mountains that cemented the relationship between me and Kim. Nothing being said, just descending the altitude under the declining spring sun.

All the moments of euphoria. And frustration. When only music would do. When the only album that would come through was "Back In Black".

The audience was so worn out after almost two hours that they weren’t clapping that much for an encore. But maybe it was the wide-open space’s lack of reverberation. Or maybe they felt they were entitled to it. After all, they’d paid. They’d clapped along the way.

Finally, the lights went up, the cannons were rolled forward, the band came out and the riff was begun. It was the finale. The classic. FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK (WE SALUTE YOU)!

I knew the routine. There was nothing unexpected. But still, when they fired those cannons, it was like the end of a two hour session of lovemaking. The audience was exploding. In orgasm. Again and again and again. It was an oh-so-satisfying release.

7

Andrew wanted to meet the band.

Joel Amsterdam said he’d see me at the show.

But he was nowhere to be found.

The road crew started hassling us.

I didn’t need to meet the band. Didn’t want to put them through it. Another town, another fan they didn’t know but had to be nice to.

But I didn’t want to disappoint my nephew.

But after fifteen minutes, he agreed to go.

We walked back out onto the carny concourse. Coming out of the bathroom, I saw a vision I couldn’t get out of my head. A girl in a cocktail dress with only one and a half arms. WHAT had happened? It was a crude stump. This was no birth defect.

But she seemed happy-go-lucky.

But how depressed was she really? I’ve finally just about gotten over losing a non-visible body part.

But ultimately, there’s no choice. You’ve got to either commit suicide or soldier on with your burden. She soldiered on by dressing up nice amongst all the leather and denim.

Walking down the hill foot traffic was held up by a man with a prosthetic leg.

I was bizarred. Creeped out. Felt sorry for these people. I had a slew of mixed emotions. I was glad to get back in the cocoon of Andrew’s car.

We hadn’t left with the troops. We didn’t get into Andrew’s car until the show had been over almost half an hour. We took vocal note of the time on the clock, 11:41.

We didn’t get out of the parking lot until 12:30. It was like a final fuck you from the proprietors of this hellhole. WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THESE PEOPLE??? SO THEY’VE GOT TO WAIT AN HOUR TO GET OUT OF THE DUST-STREWN LOT! THEY’VE GOT NO CHOICE! HA-HA!

And, fully twenty percent of the attendees weren’t leaving at all. Continuing their tailgate parties until the traffic thinned out. For all I know, they’re still there. Their bodies rotting in the hot desert sun.

They make it tough. They make it frustrating. But on the way home. When we were finally cruising in the middle of the night darkness. Andrew suddenly said, "I’d go again."

"Me too."