Saturday, August 2, 2008

Anthrax Coroner Sisters of Mercy Dead Can Dance

Later that same year I went to Scorpions on their Blackout tour, this time at the Duluth Arena Auditorium which has fixed-row seating - the second concert I'd ever seen, and another blockbuster. A strange and unforgettable thing happened there too. I ran into a couple of guys I kind of knew from school (Jeff and Dayton) and we ended up sitting together. We had pretty good seats, only about eight or so rows back from the stage (because we had gotten there early and waited in line to get in first). Now I was nearly six feet tall then and both of these guys were taller than I was by at least a few inches; Jeff is pretty gentle and soft-spoken, I didn't know Dayton very much at all but he wasn't as mellow as Jeff.

When the show starts everyone is on their feet screaming and cheering. Dayton, who's down a couple seats from me decides to stand on his chair, which must be what caught my attention. The guy behind him is a kind of shorter stocky guy who now can't see and kind of smacks him a few times to get him to get down. Dayton turns around on the chair, looks at him, and kind of gives him a "ya, whatever" kind of gesture and turns back to the show. The guy shoves him off of his chair and he almost goes over the row in front of him. After he recovers his balance he turns and swings at the guy, I think he hits him. The guy doesn't flinch, and proceeds to pound Dayton in the face about six or eight times - rapid fire style. Dayton is flailing back but not really connecting with any meaningful force. The guy pauses like "had enough?" and Dayton holds up his hands like "yes I have". They both turn back to the show. Dayton holds his hands to his smashed and bleeding face and then leaves. The guy goes back to cheering for the band like nothing happened. Jeff gave both of us rides home after the show, we didn't talk much on the way.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally forgot about that Dayton story.

That Fishbone show at Glam Slam was great.

NIN at First Ave was pretty cool too.

queasyfish said...

I saw Fishbone and KMFDM at Glam Slam, I liked that club.

I think Powermad opened for Anthrax didn't they?

Did you see the Lolapolooza "1" and "2" tickets?

mamaelvis said...

Thanks for the memory John. I found your blog searching for bike stuff rentals in Mpls, saw it was you right away & enjoying looking at your posts.

I read this particular post & the memories came flooding back for me. My wife has never seen me so engrossed reading post after post for hours last night / plus we have to leave to the airport so i'm not really helping out.

I really like that you write about the music you love (Found some great music I had not heard of.) & SQL (Somehow I wouldn't have predicted databases in your future, I was predicting music for you definitely (But SQL queries & procedures & several other things....I didn't see as part of my future to tell the truth .)

Your photo with the tele looks like it should of been on the back of a record sleeve.

You look happy with a great family. I'm glad.

Thanks again John & take care,

Jeff

queasyfish said...

Jeff! Wow, good to hear from you. Remember that shit?

You were the coolest Metalhead I knew in HS with your Carlos Cavazo-perfect hair and blue ML Baby (you were a guitar player and I was a guitar owner). You turned me on to both High N Dry and Too Fast for Love as they were released.

I was so jealous of you and Randy moving to MPLS to make music, I thought that Kindermanic album was great (except the one where you sing :) - c'mon you have to agree), I've listened to it in the last two years.

I didn't really have computer career plans either but the awesomeness of the internet was undeniable. Are you a SQL Dev or a DBA?

I am happy with a great family. Thanks. Hopefully see you again some day.

John