I have a few personal philosophies that I stick to religiously when attending rock concerts.  One of these philosophies is that when going to a rock show it is very important to be as close to the front of the stage as possible.  This poses several issues, especially when going with friends as I have found that most of my friends do not care for the up-close-and-personal experience like I do.  Why?  Because it requires sacrifice.

Example, at ACL (Austin City Limits) in 2009 Pearl Jam was one of the main headliners.  There were over 50,000 die-hard PJ fans there to see them perform.  I knew that if I were to get near the stage I would have to stake my claim early—as in PJ wasn’t going on until 9:30PM and I had to start lining up at 2PM.  Luckily there were really great bands playing on the main stage prior to PJ because once you stake your spot you can’t leave.  You can’t go get more to eat or drink, you can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t really even sit down.  Especially with ACL 2009 like so many of them it was a mud bath thanks to all the rain.  I stood in the steamy mud, by myself, no drink or food, just to be close up to see Eddie Vedder do his magic.  The cool thing about these types of situations is that you really aren’t alone, especially with an act like Pearl Jam, as they have a lot of dedicated fans doing the same thing.  Over the course of several hours I made friends with people from all over the US:  2 guys that flew down from Long Island, NY to see the band; one guy who was a 10 Club member who had followed Pearl Jam for over 14 years and had come from Colorado; a young couple who were coming to their first Pearl Jam show.  All of us stood in the wet mud, united in a cause (love of Pearl Jam!) for hours.  Was it worth it?  Hell Yes.  Eddie ended up bringing out special guest Perry Ferrell along with other special guests who played for a very long time.  Did I miss my other friends?  Of course.  But I promise the experience up close isn’t anything like far away.

Of course it is only in dealing with massive crowds that you have to wait up front for such exorbitant amounts of time (and only with major acts).  If you are able to see shows in a smaller venue your strategy is not plotting for enough time to get up front but rather getting into the venue to begin with.  These are the types of shows that sell out quickly, or in the case of the music showcase of Austin’s SXSW you have to get to the venue fast enough to wait in line since most shows are held at the various live music joints downtown and they only hold a couple hundred people per venue.  Case in point:  Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine fame) doing a showcase SXSW show in 2010 with his band Street Sweeper Social Club; I had to wait in line for a couple of hours prior for 200 capacity venue Rusty Spurs (since closed) with a badge to even have the chance to get in.  Luckily I was the last person allowed in, and so myself and 199 other fans got to hear over an hour’s worth of music by Tom and Boots Riley up close and personal.  Translation?  Loud.  Very loud.

Speaking of Rage Against the Machine:  probably the craziest concert experiences of my life was at the Rage Against the Machine reunion in 2011 in Los Angeles.  It was their only show that year (and the first in years…first L.A. show in over a decade).  Rage as a band was born and bred in East Los Angeles, with songs that pulse with emotions, overcoming oppression in various forms and redemption.  Rage was the headliner and they had several great opening bands like Rise Against and Muse (side note:  I don’t care if you hate the music of Muse you need to experience one of their concert pits before you die).  My friends and I got to the Los Angeles Coliseum early by concert standards (around 12 noon) and stood in a massive line that snaked around the stadium just so we could trade in our purchased ticket to get a wristband to allow us into the front pit by the stage.  Rather than have the entire football field of the Coliseum be one massive pit the organizers of the show decided to divide the pit into 3 different sections to do better damage control.  By the time Rage went on at 10PM the 90,000 capacity stadium was not too far from being at capacity. The lights went down and video footage of historical riots like the ones in Watts in L.A. in 1992 were shown.  Within minutes Rage busted out on stage at full force.  My friends and I were about 20 feet from the stage.  It was pure chaos.

Like tornadoes all around us mosh pits started forming.  I have been in many mosh pits (both intentionally and unintentionally) many times (getting barfed all over during an insane mosh pit of the Golgol Bordello at Lolla in 2010 comes to mind) but the ones at the Rage show at L.A. Rising were of a whole ‘nother level.  I am only 5’’1 and I was truly concerned about getting stomped to death.  Maybe getting front pit wasn’t a great idea.  Then a really neat thing happened.  Big, burly covered-in-tattoos-and-body-piercing dudes started forming mini circles around the ladies in the vicinity of the chaos.  Never before in the midst of anarchy have I experienced such chivalry.  We were protected.  We were safe.

About halfway through the Rage show my friend Sara (whom I had become separated from during the mosh pit chaos and whom I somehow managed to randomly run into again after spending a couple of songs standing next to Dana White) nudged me with eyes as big as saucers.  I turned around and saw large flames of fire.  Several fires.  People in the second and third sections of the pit behind us had created bonfires and were literally dancing in the flames.  In the hallways of the stadium you could see the flicker of the lights from fire engines of LAFD.  My biggest concern was that other people would notice the growing fires and start some sort of stampede for the exits.  But nobody did.  Rage Against the Machine kept right on playing and the fire department rushed in with water hoses and put out the fires.  I realized that my flashbacks to history class, learning how the band on the Titanic kept playing even as the ship was sinking, would not apply in modern times to this show. Phew!!  Nevertheless after the concert sweet Sara said ‘never again’ would she do a concert pit at a rock show.  I smiled sweetly and said “but of course” just to show I was a supportive friend.

One year later in the late summer of 2012 I was on the phone with Ticketmaster buying pit tickets for Sara and I to attend the Guns N Roses 25th anniversary of Appetite For Destruction performance at the Joint venue inside the Hard Rock in Las Vegas on November 9th 2012.  Stay tuned.