tellhimfred.com

Where was your first concert experience? This is a question you could answer with some detail, right? I mean, come on, this is a real memory for all of us, right?

Where were you?

Were you seeing a band you liked for a long time…like, I mean, you followed them forever?

For me it was Pink Floyd…with my old friend Dave Wechsler and sketchy Jim. 1995, PInk Floyd went on their Division Bell tour, and we knew…we KNEW…that we would never have this experience again. So when it was two hundred sixty five dollars a ticket, it was a damn good thing we lived with with mom and dad… and a damn good thing that dad…his name was Jerry…really understood how important Pink Floyd was.

Now don’t get me wrong, my dad was kind of a weirdo, and it would take me a long time to adequately explain how odd he was. Suffice it to say that I loved him even though he grew a federal case worth of weed in his wood shed, and we helped him do it.

But when I told him “Dad - I need to go to Pink Floyd, and I’m a hundred bucks short”, he may not have been the best dad in the world, but he knew that I wasn’t kidding. I’m pretty sure that he fronted me the rest of the dough and let me see the one concert that sticks with me to this day.

Why does it stick with me? Well, for one thing, Dave and I were dorks, and we had to have some food, so we stocked up at good ol’ Stop & Shop. Ever been shopping for a Pink Floyd concert high on hash on a Thursday night?

I thought not.

So we bought six pounds of mangos. No idea how to eat them, we made a mess of ourselves on the 45 minute journey down to Foxboro. Sketchy Jim stayed in the back seat, unwilling or unable to participate in our mango madness; Dave and I didn’t care.

We arrived at Foxboro stadium and the vast unknown lay before us; we were stoned immaculate, as were all the others around us.

In our seats we felt secure, and Sketchy Jim asked us if we wated pizza. Of course we did.

Pizza Hut had urchins selling small disks of doughy, saucey food related substance in the pre-concert rumble…and we were helpless victims.

Only twenty minutes later, when the music faded and the lights came up; we realized that we were going to see Pink Floyd, the band we had smoked dope to for years…only then did Sketchy Jim “ask” us if we had seen the tabs he’d put on our pizza slices.

By the time the giant pig ascended into the heavens, Dave and I were on another plane of existence, and we both knew that there would never again be a concert…live music experience…band event…if you will..that would equal this insanse nonsense….

Do I remember leaving? no. Do I remember going home and facing my parents, who knew better than I did that an 18-year old seeing Pink Floyd was gonna be messed up? Not even a little.

But I know my Dad, and even though he was a dick, I remember him telling me a couple days later, while he was smoking my leftover roaches…that he would have switched places with me any time…because that was a badass show.

This was my best live music experience. I could never want anything better.

What about you? Best show ever? How would you change it? Would you? Trade it?