My Changing Ears

Just got back from seeing the Pixies- yeah. They're older and plumper, but they still sounded great- well, as good as you can in a basketball arena. They haven't changed much at all, really.

But the whole ritual of going to a big indoor show sure has.

Instead of being patted down for bongs and drugs, we get wanded for metal weapons and searched for electronic recording devices. A cute young woman a few places ahead of me is pulled out of line. Something with heaphones and wires is pulled outta her handbag. I try to see what it is, but the line forces me forward.

I exchange looks with one of my friends- we had thought about bringing our cameras. Good thing we didn't.

The next step is to stand in line to get a "beer bracelet". They sell beer? That's cool. I have to wear a bracelet? Not so cool.

You see, I have an unnatural dislike of having anything, anything at all, on either wrist. I don't know why this is, and I probably don't want to, but it's true. It's my Kryptonite. It's my Achille's heel.( Take the Rolex back to the store-just send cash instead this year.)

The last time that I wore a bracelet, the hospital was giving me Valium and Morphine, but I don't see those being offered here. Still, I've got a little courage left over from our last parking deck doobie, so I steel myself-it's just a plastic bracelet, fer chrissakes. Little girls wear them and they don't freak out about it. I should be able to do this.

I hand one lady my ID and hold out my arm to the other, then look the other way. This is pretty much the same way I deal with getting an injection. I feel a little pressure, and something brushes the hair on my arm. I pull my jacket sleeve down over this flimsy circlet of terror. I'll bring it out when I need it.

Next order of business is to stake out our territory . It's general admission, so we have to find four adjacent seats and make sure a sentry is posted to guard them at all times. We find decent ones in the back of the first level, centerview of the stage. They've curtained off part of the arena and set the stage up in the middle of the floor, so these are pretty good seats.

Our base being established, we set out for supplies. Page and Deanne, the smokers, go outside in search of nicotine. I head for the beer line. John, who doesn't smoke or drink, guards the seats.

The Beer Lady sure is friendly . She smiles warmly and asks me what I would like .

Gimme three beers, let's see...what've you've got?

Miller Lite.

What else?

Miller Lite.

Three of them, then.

You can only order one.

But my friends, they just went outside and...

One per customer.

In other words, no matter what you want, you can only order one (1) Miller Lite.

Now I realize why beer lady is smiling so widely. She asks you what you want as if it were an inside joke, but only she knows the punch-line. It's cruel. It's like the Nuns at the orphanage asking the starving urchins what they'd like, even though the Sisters know the only option is a single ladleful from a rusty tureen of watery gruel.

They should raise the minimum working wage to at least as much as the price of this beer.

At least this solves one problem. I set my cup down on the condiments stand and rip that hateful and suddenly useless bracelet off with my teeth. Stomp it.
Feeling better, I head back to camp.

Sorry guys, you've gotta get your own. I explain the long line, total lack of options and account-draining prices.

They both decide against beer.

The lights dim. It's time for the opening band! Oh, joy!

Huh? It's 7:55. The show starts at eight. I've seen a lot of shows. I've played a lot of shows. Triple figures total on each, easy. I've never seen one start on time, much less early. I'm in future shock. The watch-bearers compare time. Five early. Is this the new norm?

A digression here for those who haven't recieved a 24 page email autobiography from me: I wasted half my life trying to be a rock star. Playing shitty clubs mostly, but there were some great shows too... in short, I failed. It was hard and it wore on me, and it's given me a very different approach to (loud style) live music.

I usually avoid it like the plague. I'm reminded why.

The opening band, The Datsuns, were too damn loud. They were ok , but too predictable. After one song , I know what's in their record collection: MC 5's Kick out the Jams, Iggy Pop's Raw Power and that double-LP Blue Oyster Cult live album with the car and the mansion on the front. John bets me that they'll play a cover of 'Kick out the Jams'. I bet him they'll play 'I Wanna be Your Dog.' He wins.

The guitarist plays the same solo on every song, the only variation being how long he goes on.

A note here to non-lead guitarists. There's three players you should know about:

-Ed: Ed will solo forever. He'll solo during a breathy moment that focuses on the singer. He'll solo between songs. He's good, but he just doesn't know when to stop.

-Igor: Igor varies from band to band, but he's the idea man. Without a strong Igor, it's unlikely that you're playing in front of an audience in the first place. Sometimes he writes songs solely for his own benefit, but he's got the catchy chops and whatever charisma is available is usually his. Or hers.

- Super-Igor: Super-Igor is like Ed and Igor after they grow up. He tightens up the licks and convinces Ed that there shouldn't be a drum solo. Super-Igor did not play with Great White, and as a result they burned the house down and killed a lot of people, including Ed.

Ed plays for the Datsuns now. I'd have liked this band when I was 18. That was 1984. John gets up and returns with a strip of toilet paper. He hands me part of it, I wad up a couple pieces and put the plugs in my ears. I take tiny sips of my beer. I figure that even the smallest of sips costs about 50 cents, but I've just saved seven years of hearing with .08 cents worth of paper-that's not so bad.

After a mediocre half- hour or so , they stop. Yay.

Here come the Pixies. They start with old fave 'Wave of Mutilation', with a new arrangement. Slow, sparse and subdued. Ballsy move, starting a set with a new arrangement of an old staple song, but it sets the stage for a segue into twenty straight minutes of unbridled fury. I like the fact that they've re-worked a lot of the old stuff, instead of just going through the motions, they've worked at it.

Frank, the singer, switches guitars. Kim, the bassist , lights a cigarette and chugs a Heiniekin. She just broke two Virginia laws: No public smoking and no drinking while performing in public.

But hey, there's 10,000 people here to see her play. Give her a break.

Frank's got the electric on and they proceed to rip through a catharsis-inducing half-dozen or so songs. Every riff is a mnemonic trigger fom my mis-spent youth. I am loving this. The band is alive. I'm alive.
Between myself and the three people with me , we've got over sixty years of combined friendship. (I'm thinking about that as I type this, and it occurs to me that getting older has some good points).

What's this? Some sort of interruption. Kim is pointing to her cigarette, yelling at someone in the darkness off-stage. I hear a snippet of Frank saying, off-mic, this is Virginia! Big tobacco and war... I wish I coulda been a fly on that microphone stand.

Well, g'night.

The audience is stunned. I look at Deanne. I think it's a joke, I mouth . She doesn't . She looks worried. I think the whole thing is staged ,and in a pretty brilliant way.

If you can't smoke and drink on stage, then what's the point of playing rock music? Unless it's Christian rock, which shouldn't even exist in the first place, why bother? It's bad enough they've forced sobriety on the audience, now they want the bands to keep it clean? It's Ok to sing about heroin, suicide, alienation and pain , but it's not ok to set a bad example for a mob of degenerates?

The place is full of smoke machines and people with hipster germs. We smoked dope all the way to the show. If the bass player wants to have a smoke, I won't consider it a threat to my long-term health.

Deanne points out a young couple with an infant . No hearing protection.That's uncool. You don't take infants to high-decibel concerts, even if the bassist doesn't have a cigarette. Is the arena smoke-free so idiotic young parents can inflict permanant hearing damage on the still-developing tympanic membranes of their babies?

We have to make rock concerts more accesible for infants and toddlers? I can't bring in a digital camera or an i-pod, but you can bring in a 1-year old who will probably develop tinnitis and hearing loss before they reach adulthood. Cool. They used to ban kids so adults could smoke.
I liked it better that way. If you can't afford a baby-sitter , you most likely can't afford a tutor and special ed' for your hearing impaired child.

Deanne wanted to jump down a few rows and bitch them out. I sorta wanted her to, but knew it would only end badly. Deanne restrained herself . What would she have said? It was too loud to talk.

Then John calls my attention to a swarming sea of tiny blue squares.

A sea of cell-phones. Everywhere. Weaving and bobbing like Glo-Stiks at a hippie concert.

Hear that? See that? They are making calls. And taking pics. How come my clunky camera is banned, but sleek camera phones aren't? Probably because they're easier to hide. Maybe they sell them at the entrance. (They do)


I can only imagine what it's like to recieve a phone-call from inside an arena show . I bet I'd wind up saying 'what?' a bunch of times and then hang up, feeling puzzled and annoyed.

My generation used lighters, but the flicker of a lighter will get you kicked out of smoke-free ODU faster than you can shout 'encore'!

Joke or not, after some wrangling,they play a great encore, obviously having fun. It's contagious.

I'm with good friends. The long ride home is timeless.

I needed that.