Ozzfest '99 (Episode Two: The Encroaching Horde)
We lost sight of the Washington Two as they staggered off with their heads down into the crowd on the hill. We turned our attention back to the stage where Puya was finishing their set. System Of A Down was up next. We ate a little and stretched out on the blanket while soaking up some sun during the stage changeover. The crowd was growing, but we still enjoyed our little plot of land. We got more and more neighbors, but they all seemed pretty cool because they had blankets and shared our respect for personal space.
System Of A Down came on and gave it their all. They weren't nearly as big as they are now and the crowd seemed indifferent to them. It was strange to watch an act from so far away in the bright sunlight while they played to half the house. From our distance, it was easy to lose track of who the musicians were and who the stagehands were because there is no ability to spotlight the performers in the daylight. During one song, I watched the guitar tech tune an axe behind the amps, thinking "What is the guitar player doing back there?" I felt pretty stupid when he handed the guitar to the real guitar player for the next song. Rookie move.
After System's set, Chet and I went for a walk on the concourse. Godsmack was up next and we figured that it would be okay to take off now for a while. Got some beers and took a good look at the merchandise. The days of the $13 concert shirt were far gone. One shirt caught my eye; the back had the two futuristic pilots from the Never Say Die album on it and the front had the logo from Sabbath's reunion album. I thought maybe I'd pick it up after the show. In reality, I just didn't want to cut into the beer fund. If I bought a shirt and ran short of beer money, I'd resent that shirt. If I had money left over and was able to buy the shirt, that means I was a good boy and deserved the shirt. If I drank too much and didn't have the cash for the shirt, I'd just rationalize until I felt better about not having the shirt. (Jumping ahead: they sold out of the shirt and I had the money for it. What did that mean?)
We picked up four more beers and headed back to Camp Geezer. We both were really looking forward to seeing Primus, probably the "odd man out" band of the day. They were absolutely fantastic that day, maybe the strongest set I'd seen of theirs to that point. The crowd was much more into them than I'd expected, too. And this is when we felt the first rumblings of the approaching troglodyte army. If you've ever gotten the feeling that someone's looking over your shoulder, multilpy that by four-thousand and you start to get the idea of what it felt like on the rail. We had a prime spot and the blanket took up enough square footage to hold about 12 people. We were but four strong with hundreds, if not thousands looking to fill the remaining 8 lots in this Hellish subdivision.
Now, after Primus finished up, we were making ourselves look bigger as if to fend off predators. Each one of us stood on a corner of the blanket facing outward like totem poles. Time after time, people came down the hill after seeing a patch of space from high above. They would approach us and look down at the blanket, look at us, look back up the hill and shake their heads as a signal to their chief, alpha dog or whoever they answered to that the space was indeed taken.
Earlier in the day, I had mentioned that I'd like to check out the Second Stage headliner, Fear Factory. I'd read some positive things about them and sometimes Second Stage acts went on to bigger and better things. So I thought it would be cool to check it out and asked if anyone would like to go with me. Chet and Mike wanted to check out Slayer, who was next on the bill, so they opted out. Janet trusted my instincts on Fear Factory and agreed to trek out to the Second Stage. We hung around until Slayer hit the stage just to see what they were all about. I had only vague knowledge of Slayer going way back to the '80s. I figured they were just some "Satanic" band, capitalizing on the fear of parents and school administrators.
What they were, or at least what they appeared to be that day in beautiful Mountain View was frightening. I'm rarely shocked by what I see on television or movies these days and music that purports to be shocking usually just makes me laugh. (C'mon, who's really scared of Marylin Manson?) But I tell you that on that sunny day in July in the year of our Lord Nineteen-Hundred and Ninety-Nine, I was scared. It was still daylight when the ominous music started up and the crowd went insane. All four of us looked around to see angry faces and raised fists. Real estate was getting precious at this point. Then the video screen fired up and showed the cover art for Slayer's then upcoming album, the name of which escapes me. Then, we all saw video in close-up of a young man's arm having "SLAYER" cut into it with a razor blade. A quick edit then jumped to the young man squeezing his fist to make blood pump throught the letter-wound, all the while this thundering background music is blasting. The audience went berzerk. I was okay until the next video effect. This was video footage of a young man about 19 years old, beaten and bloodied, obviously in a concert venue, leaning over a rail (oh, shit) and screaming "Slayer!!!" This footage was looped to show the moment over and over again. I haven't seen the tapes, but I imagined that this was something like the Faces of Death video series.
Janet and I hung around for two songs before we had to head out for the Fear Factory set. For the record, Slayer's music wasn't frightening at all. Just very heavy, very fast and very garbled. I refer to that genre as Fast Mud instead of Heavy Metal. But the crowd was very scary. A huge moshpit/skirmish had taken over the center of the grass area. From our vantage point, we saw chunks of turf flying through the air, a massive dark cloud of dust collecting and people backing away quickly in an obvious attempt at self-preservation. Janet and I headed up the hill with dusk taking over the sky. I took in all the faces as we passed by. I would break it down like this:
35% Ozzy fans
15% Black Sabbath fans
8% there with boyfriends, bored out of their minds
2% looking for lost boyfriends
10% lost boyfriends (8% of which wanted to be lost)
30% Orcs
We both got out onto the concourse and followed the signs to the Second Stage when I had a brainstorm; we should get beers to watch Fear Factory. Janet responded by reminding me that I was a genius, so we headed to the beer stand. Two tall cool ones would get us through the set and we could pick up another quartet of brews for the Fresno Four back at the rail.
Sipping the waxy edges of our cups so as not to spill the prized elixir, we came upon the entrance to the Second Stage. The gateway to the other stage was actually a partition in a chain link fence out to the parking lot. The stage was set up on one end of a circle of temporary chain link fence in the closest lot. We started to walk on through and the Rent-A-Unemployable-Person security guard notified us that we couldn't take our beer out to the Second Stage area. We protested politely and were told that since the stage was in the parking lot, beer consumption was not allowed. Janet asked the guard if he saw all the tailgating going on before the show and wondered what the difference was. He shrugged and I was pretty sure Janet was sizing him up for a bum rush. But we "clinked" our cups together, said something to the effect of salud, chugged the beers and headed into the Second Stage area.
Next up; Episode Three: The Gravel Pit, The Last Stand and The Abdication
System Of A Down came on and gave it their all. They weren't nearly as big as they are now and the crowd seemed indifferent to them. It was strange to watch an act from so far away in the bright sunlight while they played to half the house. From our distance, it was easy to lose track of who the musicians were and who the stagehands were because there is no ability to spotlight the performers in the daylight. During one song, I watched the guitar tech tune an axe behind the amps, thinking "What is the guitar player doing back there?" I felt pretty stupid when he handed the guitar to the real guitar player for the next song. Rookie move.
After System's set, Chet and I went for a walk on the concourse. Godsmack was up next and we figured that it would be okay to take off now for a while. Got some beers and took a good look at the merchandise. The days of the $13 concert shirt were far gone. One shirt caught my eye; the back had the two futuristic pilots from the Never Say Die album on it and the front had the logo from Sabbath's reunion album. I thought maybe I'd pick it up after the show. In reality, I just didn't want to cut into the beer fund. If I bought a shirt and ran short of beer money, I'd resent that shirt. If I had money left over and was able to buy the shirt, that means I was a good boy and deserved the shirt. If I drank too much and didn't have the cash for the shirt, I'd just rationalize until I felt better about not having the shirt. (Jumping ahead: they sold out of the shirt and I had the money for it. What did that mean?)
We picked up four more beers and headed back to Camp Geezer. We both were really looking forward to seeing Primus, probably the "odd man out" band of the day. They were absolutely fantastic that day, maybe the strongest set I'd seen of theirs to that point. The crowd was much more into them than I'd expected, too. And this is when we felt the first rumblings of the approaching troglodyte army. If you've ever gotten the feeling that someone's looking over your shoulder, multilpy that by four-thousand and you start to get the idea of what it felt like on the rail. We had a prime spot and the blanket took up enough square footage to hold about 12 people. We were but four strong with hundreds, if not thousands looking to fill the remaining 8 lots in this Hellish subdivision.
Now, after Primus finished up, we were making ourselves look bigger as if to fend off predators. Each one of us stood on a corner of the blanket facing outward like totem poles. Time after time, people came down the hill after seeing a patch of space from high above. They would approach us and look down at the blanket, look at us, look back up the hill and shake their heads as a signal to their chief, alpha dog or whoever they answered to that the space was indeed taken.
Earlier in the day, I had mentioned that I'd like to check out the Second Stage headliner, Fear Factory. I'd read some positive things about them and sometimes Second Stage acts went on to bigger and better things. So I thought it would be cool to check it out and asked if anyone would like to go with me. Chet and Mike wanted to check out Slayer, who was next on the bill, so they opted out. Janet trusted my instincts on Fear Factory and agreed to trek out to the Second Stage. We hung around until Slayer hit the stage just to see what they were all about. I had only vague knowledge of Slayer going way back to the '80s. I figured they were just some "Satanic" band, capitalizing on the fear of parents and school administrators.
What they were, or at least what they appeared to be that day in beautiful Mountain View was frightening. I'm rarely shocked by what I see on television or movies these days and music that purports to be shocking usually just makes me laugh. (C'mon, who's really scared of Marylin Manson?) But I tell you that on that sunny day in July in the year of our Lord Nineteen-Hundred and Ninety-Nine, I was scared. It was still daylight when the ominous music started up and the crowd went insane. All four of us looked around to see angry faces and raised fists. Real estate was getting precious at this point. Then the video screen fired up and showed the cover art for Slayer's then upcoming album, the name of which escapes me. Then, we all saw video in close-up of a young man's arm having "SLAYER" cut into it with a razor blade. A quick edit then jumped to the young man squeezing his fist to make blood pump throught the letter-wound, all the while this thundering background music is blasting. The audience went berzerk. I was okay until the next video effect. This was video footage of a young man about 19 years old, beaten and bloodied, obviously in a concert venue, leaning over a rail (oh, shit) and screaming "Slayer!!!" This footage was looped to show the moment over and over again. I haven't seen the tapes, but I imagined that this was something like the Faces of Death video series.
Janet and I hung around for two songs before we had to head out for the Fear Factory set. For the record, Slayer's music wasn't frightening at all. Just very heavy, very fast and very garbled. I refer to that genre as Fast Mud instead of Heavy Metal. But the crowd was very scary. A huge moshpit/skirmish had taken over the center of the grass area. From our vantage point, we saw chunks of turf flying through the air, a massive dark cloud of dust collecting and people backing away quickly in an obvious attempt at self-preservation. Janet and I headed up the hill with dusk taking over the sky. I took in all the faces as we passed by. I would break it down like this:
35% Ozzy fans
15% Black Sabbath fans
8% there with boyfriends, bored out of their minds
2% looking for lost boyfriends
10% lost boyfriends (8% of which wanted to be lost)
30% Orcs
We both got out onto the concourse and followed the signs to the Second Stage when I had a brainstorm; we should get beers to watch Fear Factory. Janet responded by reminding me that I was a genius, so we headed to the beer stand. Two tall cool ones would get us through the set and we could pick up another quartet of brews for the Fresno Four back at the rail.
Sipping the waxy edges of our cups so as not to spill the prized elixir, we came upon the entrance to the Second Stage. The gateway to the other stage was actually a partition in a chain link fence out to the parking lot. The stage was set up on one end of a circle of temporary chain link fence in the closest lot. We started to walk on through and the Rent-A-Unemployable-Person security guard notified us that we couldn't take our beer out to the Second Stage area. We protested politely and were told that since the stage was in the parking lot, beer consumption was not allowed. Janet asked the guard if he saw all the tailgating going on before the show and wondered what the difference was. He shrugged and I was pretty sure Janet was sizing him up for a bum rush. But we "clinked" our cups together, said something to the effect of salud, chugged the beers and headed into the Second Stage area.
Next up; Episode Three: The Gravel Pit, The Last Stand and The Abdication
posted by Tony at 6:59 PM
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