A random story from 1995...
So in 7th grade I really liked the band White Zombie. They were coming to the Expo Square Pavilion in Tulsa and I couldn’t miss it, so I picked up a couple of general admission tickets with a buddy of mine and we went with his deadbeat step-something (dad? uncle?... can’t remember). Filter opened for White Zombie that particular evening, and as we were seated in general admission, we were relegated to gazing longingly down on those who had ‘floor tickets’ where the moshing occurred. Two drag queens sat right behind us and created an environment in our immediate vicinity that motivated us to relocate, and our sights were set on the ‘floor’. The problem was, there were bouncers spaced every ten feet or so around the 8-foot wall that separated us general admission peons from the heavy metal bourgeoisie of the mid-90s. The bouncers were scary human beings, and I think Tulsa law enforcement gave them carte blanche authority to exercise martial law within the arena, so it seemed that evading them was going to be in my best interest. We were determined to make our move during intermission.
As luck would have it, someone started a mini-riot on the other side of the arena by ripping metal chairs from the general admission section and hurling them down onto the crowd below. This prompted a mass movement of people jumping the wall, distracting the bouncers just long enough for Matt and I to slip over the wall undetected. I’m not a big guy now, but I must have been all of a buck-ten soaking wet back then, and Matt was not much bigger.
(Not actually me... but you get the idea)
As such, we sought the help of a giant, shirtless skinhead who was tatted from his neck to his waistline. Yes, he was heavily inebriated, but we believed him when he said he would look out for us when the music started again. Why would we not trust the man? After a few minutes of truly mindless conversation, the lights lowered, White Zombie took the stage, strummed the first note, and the skinhead grabbed Matt and literally threw him over the heads of those standing nearby. I didn’t see him again until the end of the evening. The crowd instantly went from a placid, milling mass to a frothing jumble of human bodies.
I was able to duck under the melee (and avoid being arbitrarily hurled by the skinhead), something like how a mouse would have to pick its way through a herd of angry, wasted elephants. The problem was that I was making my way forward, toward the cage. Yes, the cage. If you, like me, were dumb enough to go to a metal concert in the 90s, you might remember that right in front of the stage was often the cage where the most terrifying monsters lurked. You could literally watch bouncers lift bodies out of the cage by the dozens and carry them off stage left or stage right on stretchers. Nevertheless, everyone wanted in the cage. As a result, the mass of bodies behind me pressed me up against the cage as they all clambered to get in. The last thought I had before I blacked out was, “so this is what it feels like when you’re dying…” as the heat and pressure finally caused my consciousness to ebb into darkness.
I probably should have died from being trampled. But somehow I made it to the back of the auditorium. When I came to, I noticed that I was lying on my back in a puddle of filth with a torn pant leg, and I was missing a shoe. My shoulder length hair was matted to my face. I passed out again. The second time I came to, Matt was sitting next to me running his fingers through my hair. He looked a little shell-shocked. His deadbeat step-something helped us to the car and took me home where I was thankful to find that my parents were not waiting up for me. I fell asleep on the floor of my room before I could even change out of the clothes that bore the carnage of the evening. One day, I look forward to finding out just how I came to be air-lifted from the death zone of the cage to the back of the auditorium... for now I'll just take it as a sign that metal concerts aren't my thing.