Driving along the freeway in my 69 Ford multi-tone bondo & paint pickup, sun setting on my right in a clear August sky, Oregon 300+ miles in the distance and counting down. I'm alone except for my friends Joe and Jen ahead in the pea green 70's firebird and the occasional semi-truck moving behind into the past.
I feel excitement building, the adventure of staying in Oregon for the weekend and going to my first concert. We drive through the night until we reach the Columbia river; the border to Portland. We meet another friend, Shawn, and stay up late drinking and telling stories around the campfire on a sandy pullout next to the shore. I slept in the bed of my truck, awaking at sunrise to Shawn yelling "Get up dickhead and let's go to a concert!" My reply was full of expletives and obscenities and threats of violence. Minor violence ensued.
The concert started at dusk so we spent the daylight driving around and meeting friends, relatives, and random people on the street. We smoked some cannabis. We contemplated life and ignored the time... until we realized the sun was setting! We speed towards the city center, convince Joe to park in a no-parking zone, run to the amphitheater at top speed so not to miss the concert, and then wait in line for another hour.
We make it to our seats just as the Melvins begin playing. The seats are 6 rows up from the floor and just right of the dead center aisle facing the stage. There is a 3.5 foot tall barricade fence in front of the first row keeping the less fortunate, or less driven, from the floor and from becoming part of the potential energy of the crowd encircling and pushing up against the stage face proper. I am jealous.
I sit in my seat through the Melvins and then, fucking fuck, it's Tool. The whole arena goes wild, including me. They don't waste time, no wasted words, nothing about being so glad to be in Portland, not bothering with pleasantries or niceties. None of us cared about the niceties. This was the 1990's; We were there to burn our angst, to yell, to profess our rage at being a generation forced to watch the recession of H.S.Thompson's high water mark of the 60's. I wonder what Ginsberg would have written.
I know what Maynard wrote. Tool, Schism:
"I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering, fundamental differing...
To point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over
To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication"
The more the band played the wilder the crowd got and the wilder the crowd got the louder the band seemed to play. The whole arena became one animal, a singular organism. From my centered vantage I could see both right and left sections down the entire length of the coliseum. It was undulating in a barely contained mania. The floor, the 'pit', in front of the stage was openly manic, the men letting forth the inner barbarian, the women their inner bacchante. I want to be in the middle of it, in the fight of it, thrown elbows, face it, the pain and struggle, letting go control. I notice the crowd that is the animal has filled the isles. I notice I am in the isle. Shawn is next to me. We can see the security guard standing powerfully in front of the fence 15 steps down, directly ahead.
Tool finishes whatever song they had been playing. The arena stops moving, but it is poised... breathing shallowly, expectantly. There seems to be agitation with the security guards, they receive a communication. All the security step up the aisle stairs and begin yelling "Out of the Aisle!... Everyone... Stand back..." Tool begins... The Mandela Drums start slow but powerful.
Pause now reader and have a listen while you read along, and imagine it: Stinkfist:
"Back in Your Seats..." The Mandela effect continues. The arena does NOT get back in their seats, "Sit Down!!...Out of the Aisle!!" 10 seconds. The crowd has intensity, the drum beat is expectant, "I said Sit DOWN!". We know this song. 15 seconds. the beat is building, now more people are NOT back in their seats. 20 seconds. "GET BACK NOW!!".The entire crowd, every single person in the arena is now standing and rippling with defiance to the orders. 25 seconds, the note stretches... The arena shivers. And then it happens.
When it happens, everyone, EVERYONE, in the arena, starting from the top rows like a human flood overflowing the seats of a dam, come rushing down. I can see the upper levels to my left and right, see the structure of the music in the people, every symbols crash of the song another row plowed over or through, breaking through the upper barriers and security and the unfortunate slower minimum wage ushers. The human structure a rippling wave of people as I had never seen before, or since.
It happened so fast, I'm not sure what Joe or Shawn yelled but something about "right behind!". I can't be sure if they meant they were right behind me or telling me to look right behind. But I didn't need to, because seeing the cresting of the wave in my peripherals I intuitively understand what is happening. Even knowing I still let my eyes follow the crowd from the upper rows in the arena around to look directly behind me and I see, I realize, I feel the weight of hundreds of people rushing down upon me. I have nowhere to go but follow the aisle toward the guard in front, a guard who wasn't yelling authoritative directives any longer and who genuinely looked concerned about the immediate situation. I felt hands on my back pushing me faster than I could run, and there was a moment when our eyes met, the security and I, and there was recognition that neither he nor I had any control over the next moments.
I barrel past him as he moves sideways, out of the flash flood of bodies, and he puts his arm out. I believe it was intentioned as an attempt to help slow me down rather than to stop me, but there was too much inertia for his arm to make much of a difference. Four steps further and there is the 3.5 tall barrier fence. I can barely keep my feet beneath me, Three steps, I'm going to fall. Two steps, I begin jumping. Final Step, both feet are in the air, with a twist of my hip one foot is over, I realize I'm going to make it, I'm going make, I... my second foot catches under the upper barricade bar, my face begins the arc toward the floor accelerated from the pivot point of my caught foot. I twist and curl. I hit. Hard.
I remember being in a type of flattened fetal position, the fence coming down on top of me, the upper bar next to my head, a shoe, an Airwalk inches above my face pinned under the overturned barrier fence, the foot clearly about to use the fence (and my face) as a springboard to the pit.
I remember waking up in the shape of a murdered chalk outline, laying face down, one arm up above the head, the other half underneath me. The fence was back to its previous position. I get up and run, I am running, half dazed I join pit while the coliseum screams.
"...To breath, to feel, to know I'm alive..."
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