Just another quiet Sunday night......(Book I)
Metallica.
The name alone brings forth dark imagery to most minds. They bear the mantle of Heavy Metal Royalty. They were to the last generation and remain to the current one, all that is heavy, fast, loud, mean and appropriate to get all f***ed up to. (That's my censorship there with the stars--I've got relatives that haven't heard me swear that read this. But in the future, if I use a direct quote, I'm fucking using curse words. Ooops, that didn't last long.)
Metallica rolled into town Sunday night (March 14th, 2004) and while I'm not a fan by any means, I was happy to see another big ticket act on the schedule for the new arena. The Save Mart Center (named for a large Central Cali grocery chain and located on the campus of Fresno State) is a new facility that dwarfs the concrete cavern downtown known as Selland Arena. It's managed by SMG, a company with a proven track record for being aggressive when it comes to booking acts. So far, so good; they've landed and scored with Kiss/Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Elton John and most impressively, Andrea Bocelli. Coming up are dates with the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Shania Twain.
As I said, I'm not really a fan of Metallica, but I know they put on a good show because I saw them up in S.F with Janet last summer. (That's another tale altogether.) I was on the fence about seeing them this time around. Mary's sister Jean's husband, Scott, and I talked about going when it was announced, but it really never came up again.
A few days before the show, I checked out the band's website to see if there was any info on the tour. I found out that the stage was set up "in the round", meaning it would be on the floor of the arena instead of at one end. Also, the band would change their setlist every night and I gave them instant credibility for that. So many large acts play the same set every night, it was refreshing to hear this. Another very cool aspect was the fact that virtually every night's performance would be available to download as an official bootleg recording from the band's website. So I started leaning towards going. I called Scott and he was down with it.
I bought tickets online Thursday before the show and ended up with the scraps. These two seats would get us in the house, but that's about it. My nose started bleeding just from looking at the online seating chart.
Jean drove us to the show, which was very cool of her. Well, actually she drove us to the 7-11 a couple of blocks away so we could buy 32oz Miller Lites and pour them into 32oz Big Gulp cups for the wait in line. My wife and I came up with that move waiting in line to see acts in the old Wilson Theater years ago. It shows a bit more dignity than the ol' paper bag around a Forty. Just a little bit.
Walking up to the arena, we heard the ritualistic sounds of car stereos blasting Metallica while people (I use that term loosly here) milled about, drinking, smoking and generally revving up for the night's action. Walking through the parking lot reminded me of Bartertown from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, only I wasn't so sure that these mutants had checked their weapons at the gate.
The lines to the various entrances snaked all over the place and there were alot of people (again, generous description) in them. While there were some General Admission floor tickets and the holders of such would be there early to dash to a prime moshing spot, I was surprised that many others were in line just to get to a seat that was waiting for them. Turns out, the doors were not opened in time and the lines just got longer and longer. We thought briefly about sneaking into a line somewhere, but I didn't like the prospect of explaining the missing teeth the next day to Mary. So we used the same logic that gets you served faster at the movie snack counter; go to the middle line. The lines on the edges are always long because people walk up to the nearest line (usually the two outside lines) and stand there like they were there seeing a movie to celebrate a successful lobotomy.
It wasn't long before we were inside and that's where I'll take leave of this yarn for now. More to follow tommorow. Thanks for checking in--I hope you're enjoying reading this tripe as much as I did living it. Please leave any comments you have by clicking on, uhh, COMMENTS below.
The name alone brings forth dark imagery to most minds. They bear the mantle of Heavy Metal Royalty. They were to the last generation and remain to the current one, all that is heavy, fast, loud, mean and appropriate to get all f***ed up to. (That's my censorship there with the stars--I've got relatives that haven't heard me swear that read this. But in the future, if I use a direct quote, I'm fucking using curse words. Ooops, that didn't last long.)
Metallica rolled into town Sunday night (March 14th, 2004) and while I'm not a fan by any means, I was happy to see another big ticket act on the schedule for the new arena. The Save Mart Center (named for a large Central Cali grocery chain and located on the campus of Fresno State) is a new facility that dwarfs the concrete cavern downtown known as Selland Arena. It's managed by SMG, a company with a proven track record for being aggressive when it comes to booking acts. So far, so good; they've landed and scored with Kiss/Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Elton John and most impressively, Andrea Bocelli. Coming up are dates with the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Shania Twain.
As I said, I'm not really a fan of Metallica, but I know they put on a good show because I saw them up in S.F with Janet last summer. (That's another tale altogether.) I was on the fence about seeing them this time around. Mary's sister Jean's husband, Scott, and I talked about going when it was announced, but it really never came up again.
A few days before the show, I checked out the band's website to see if there was any info on the tour. I found out that the stage was set up "in the round", meaning it would be on the floor of the arena instead of at one end. Also, the band would change their setlist every night and I gave them instant credibility for that. So many large acts play the same set every night, it was refreshing to hear this. Another very cool aspect was the fact that virtually every night's performance would be available to download as an official bootleg recording from the band's website. So I started leaning towards going. I called Scott and he was down with it.
I bought tickets online Thursday before the show and ended up with the scraps. These two seats would get us in the house, but that's about it. My nose started bleeding just from looking at the online seating chart.
Jean drove us to the show, which was very cool of her. Well, actually she drove us to the 7-11 a couple of blocks away so we could buy 32oz Miller Lites and pour them into 32oz Big Gulp cups for the wait in line. My wife and I came up with that move waiting in line to see acts in the old Wilson Theater years ago. It shows a bit more dignity than the ol' paper bag around a Forty. Just a little bit.
Walking up to the arena, we heard the ritualistic sounds of car stereos blasting Metallica while people (I use that term loosly here) milled about, drinking, smoking and generally revving up for the night's action. Walking through the parking lot reminded me of Bartertown from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, only I wasn't so sure that these mutants had checked their weapons at the gate.
The lines to the various entrances snaked all over the place and there were alot of people (again, generous description) in them. While there were some General Admission floor tickets and the holders of such would be there early to dash to a prime moshing spot, I was surprised that many others were in line just to get to a seat that was waiting for them. Turns out, the doors were not opened in time and the lines just got longer and longer. We thought briefly about sneaking into a line somewhere, but I didn't like the prospect of explaining the missing teeth the next day to Mary. So we used the same logic that gets you served faster at the movie snack counter; go to the middle line. The lines on the edges are always long because people walk up to the nearest line (usually the two outside lines) and stand there like they were there seeing a movie to celebrate a successful lobotomy.
It wasn't long before we were inside and that's where I'll take leave of this yarn for now. More to follow tommorow. Thanks for checking in--I hope you're enjoying reading this tripe as much as I did living it. Please leave any comments you have by clicking on, uhh, COMMENTS below.
posted by Tony at 4:33 PM
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