You damn kids with your baggy pants and your mosh pits

True confessions time: in my entire youth, I never attended a rock concert. Yes, I know. The only thing that could render me less cool at this point is if I were to tell you the sorts of things I was allowed to go to instead, but I think I've lost enough coolness points for one post, so suffice to say that the closest thing to a genuine rock concert I managed to attend as a sheltered youngster was a Richard Marx concert. Even then, there was assigned seating, and besides, Rich can sing a mean ballad, but he doesn't exactly inspire one to risk life and limb crowd surfing.

Needless to say, none of this prepared me for last Tuesday night, when my husband took me to see 311.

Now, my husband is a little more world weary and wise in the way of these things, so I trusted him completely when he wanted to get there two hours early to stand in line so we could be assured of a spot close to the stage. And, despite the fact that 311 is not, like, my favoritest band ever, I shared his joy when we found ourselves standing second row center. We did worry that there might be trouble from the groupie in front of us, who, being a large, balding guy who was at least our age and who managed to find profound meaning in 311's lyrics by which to instill his life with meaning was the antithesis of the image that the word "groupie" generally conjures up; and who, besides shamelessly and drunkenly groping every sweet young thang that made the mistake of trying to sidle up next to him in order to be closer to the band, got in our faces a few times to demand that we be more exuberant about the impending and, obviously, life-changing AWESOMENESS of being only moments away from having 311 on stage just a few feet in front of us. But as it turned out, once the show started, that guy was the least of our worries.

You guys, I've seen rock concerts on TV, and not just fictional ones. I've seen actual concert footage. I thought this clued me in pretty well on what to expect, and I thought I could handle it. I was so terribly wrong, on both counts.

The band came out. Groupie Guy was so excited I thought he might have an aneurysm, but his excitement was soon matched by the rest of the crowed, all 500 or so of whom tried to rush the stage at once, while simultaneously trying to force room in the middle of the crowd, which is where we were, to start a mosh pit. One second I'm standing there relaxed and happy, with a drink in one hand and my husband's arm in the other, "Whooo!"-ing and getting jazzed to enjoy some good music, and the next I'm literally swept off my feet, trying to pry strangers' elbows out of my ribs and create enough room to breathe and keep from losing my shoes and my husband and protect my face from getting burned on the end of the joint the guy next to me just lit up and my head from getting kicked by one of the damn kids getting passed around overhead, all at the same time, and oh, by the way, now I'm wearing my drink, and pretty much getting battered against my husband's crutches. I'm also having a full-on panic attack. I manage to look around to see if anybody is actually enjoying this, and the damn kids all around me are laughing and going with the flow and managing to have a perfectly good time, and I burst into tears and think I just might literally die if I don't get out of there.

Thankfully, this was about the same instant when my husband managed to grab me by the waist and shout for me to follow him, and he used his crutches to pretty much whack a path for us to get the hell out of there. We got to the side of the room, on the much more mellow edge of the crowd, and I couldn't stop crying, and he wanted to know if somebody groped me or assaulted me, and finally I was able to calm down and tell him that I was just freaking out and that I'd be okay. Miraculously, I managed not to lose either of my flip-flops in that mess. Less miraculously, he realized he'd lost his phone.

So now he was the one freaking out and I was the one trying to calm him down. We eventually settled on a plan to wait out the concert and then call his phone once everybody left and, assuming it didn't get picked up and taken, or crushed in all of the moshing, we could just follow the sound of the ring tone. We moved to the back of the room and managed to mellow out and enjoy the rest of the concert, which I must say, was pretty tight, and 311 sounds every bit as good live as they do on CD. Incidentally, our new vantage point turned out to be pretty good for people watching, and especially for watching people get bounced.

Finally, the concert ended. We hung back as most of the crowed filed, staggered, or, in a few cases, got dragged out, and finally the floor was clear enough to allow for the possibility of finding our phone. As I went to search, though, the bouncers made me leave. Husband told them about our lost phone, and they pretty much told him these things never get recovered. Either the phones get pulverized, or they get stolen. Husband was somewhere between angry and despondent over losing all of his pictures when I decided to try calling it one more time. This time, one of the bouncers answered it. Someone had picked it up and thrown it at his head during the concert, and he pocketed it. Another miracle! Kinda.

So that's my first big rock concert adventure, and, most likely, it's my last. I think the moral of this story is that we're just too old for this sort of thing. There might also be a moral in there somewhere about being sure to experience these things while you're still young enough to fully enjoy them, but really, I think teenage me still would have been too old and crotchety for this sort of thing. The other moral is, of course, never wear flip-flops in a mosh pit. And don't keep your phone in your front shirt pocket, because it surely won't stay there.

That's a lot of life lessons to pack into one evening. I'm exhausted now just recounting them. Now pull up your pants and get off my lawn.