Ok, so I went to Austin this past weekend to see Metallica. They are one of my favorite bands. They were playing a tiny venue that only holds about 2000 people, rather than the 30,000-50,0000 at a normal show. They were doing this to promote their new Guitar Hero: Metallica game. I entered a drawing for the passes to the show thru the Metallica fan club. Joining the fan club is the only way to get good pre-sale tickets to their shows and to enter drawings for meet and greet passes, and for special events like this Guitar Hero release party. Anyway, so I entered the drawing and won. woot!

I have several friends that live in Austin so I would also have a free place to stay. We went down a day early to hang out, and had a good time. This was also the weekend of the the South By Southwest festival, so the entire town was swamped with people. We grabbed some fish tacos at Wahoo's, and then went next door to Dirty Bill's to pick up our free credentials for the show. It was a lot easier than I anticipated. I told them my name, and they handed me the laminates.



It didn't take very long so we decided to hit Opal Devine's across the street and have a few beers. The Metallica show was not until later in the evening, so we then went to "Type by Typewriter". This is a precursor to the "Fuck by Fuck Yall v2.0" festival. These are events put on by locals in response to the SXSW festival invading their town. Free admission, free beer, free entertainment. The opposite of SXSW. Basically its a small outdoor music festival in some dudes back yard. He has a big stage set up and gets lots of bands from all over the world to play short sets all day. He even has a goat named Yogi. It was a blast. I was exposed to music I typically do not encounter. There was a band there called "Asukusa Jinta" from Japan that describes themselves as a hardcore marching brass band, and they were fucking awesome! If you get a chance check them out at http://www.myspace.com/asakusajinta. They are mega rad.

So after hanging out at TXTW/FXFY for a while we went back to my friends house to call a cab to take us over to the Metallica show. I wanted to take a cab so that I could drink mass quantities of beer and not have to operate a motor vehicle. The cab place said the cab would be there "within 30 minutes". This would be perfect whereas we were supposed to be there at 6:15pm, and it was 5:20pm. 5:50pm rolls around.. no cab. 6:00pm rolls around.. no cab. 6:10pm rolls around.. no cab! What the fuck? So, I call up the cab place and tell them its been nearly an hour, and their response is simply that they "are still trying to get a cab" out to me. Being late freaks me out. It always has. Being late to me is inexcusable, you should never be late to anything you disrespectful bastard! now, the stupid cab company, who does not give a shit about anything, has put me in this scenario. Fuck it.

I hop in my truck and head to downtown. I find a little parking lot for 10 bucks maybe 6 blocks from Stubb's Bar-B-Q, which is where the show was taking place. There is one empty slot and my fuckin truck is way too big to fit into it. The lady tells me that there is another lot up the street, so I go to it instead. Now I am maybe 7 or 8 blocks away. So we hoof it at full speed to get the the damn thing. They have various lines to get into the thing, and we get in the 'guests of Metallica' line since we have the proper credentials. The line goes down the street, around the corner, and down another street. Wow. We get in line and it immediately starts moving. woot! About 5 minutes later, we were inside ready to rock. All the stress from the cab company and their bullshit for nothing. If we had gotten there early, we would have just stood in line.

Stubb's is an outdoor venue and there are no chairs. I know Metallica is not going on until around 10:00pm, and its 6:30pm. Damn, this is going to be a long night. So, this DJ dude called "Bassnectar" plays for a while, then the Silversun Pickups jammed a set. Then Metallica took the stage and rocked the house. They were tight and heavy. It was bizarre to see them in such a small setting. No fancy lights, no magic stage, no pyrotechnics, no room to perform theatrics, just 4 dudes playing their instruments. Quite a departure from the almost mythical entity they appear to be at a huge tour show. I saw them as just some band displaying their wares.


This picture is blurry but I thought it was funny to see all the cameras people were holding.










I was maybe 25-30 feet from the stage. I chose this spot because there was a tree to lean against, which I figured would be a good idea since I had to stand there so long. I could have walked right up to the stage and leaned against it I suppose, but I wanted to be able to see everything. I don't know if you have ever been to a metal show, but it can get pretty intense. Lots of sweaty stinky bastards standing shoulder to shoulder, and belly to back, literally standing room only, all tossing beer around, and screaming lyrics at the top of their lungs, and headbanging, with no regard for anyone or anything around them. You get shoved around, you get trampled on, you get spit on, you get beer poured all over you, you almost get into a fight every 10 minutes. It is sheer hell, yet it is fucking amazingly awesome. There was a big bloody dirty nasty mosh pit a few feet away, and you fear if it grows larger, you might have to drop a few mofos. It was extraordinarily intense. The entire event was killer and I loved it. Seeing a show like that is very retro for me. I stood up in one spot a little over 6 hours that night. I am older and more refined, so it was a complete 180 from what I am used to.... air conditioning, chairs, etc. It reminded me that I am now old. Would I do it again? Sure, in a heartbeat. Would I do it again tomorrow? probably not.

But, at least I am not a pussy.