the Police TACTICAL

Let me start by saying that this show was AWESOME. I heard that they were running at about half-speed back at the Virgin Fest at the start of this summer from rust or whatever, but they were definitely on top of their game on this night. Now personally, I find it just a little bit pathetic that they'd be out on tour to play nothing but songs that are ALL at LEAST 20 years old, some of them 30, but on the other hand, I grew up with this stuff and I can't help appreciating the musicianship and craft of such experienced performers.

I was actually not assigned to work with the Police but rather the opening act, "Fiction Plane." Apparently they're fronted by Sting's son. I've never heard of them, and I really didn't think much of their set to be totally honest, but at least it was an easy day. You see, when you work with the opening act, it means that you're working for the poor people. This means that they're not going to ask you go get many things, just basic stuff like cigarettes and beer or whatever, but on the other hand, when they DO ask you to find them something, you'd BETTER come up with it, because if they're willing to spend money on it, it's something they REALLY need for the show. Now that I think about it, if that was Sting's son, money shouldn't have been an issue, but whatever. Easy day for me!

These guys didn't even show up to the venue until 4P. I had to be there at 930A, so I was totally just sitting around for 6 hours watching the union guys unload the trucks and put up the staging. It was a pretty impressive setup. I spent all afternoon watching them put this stuff together. You can see it halfway done in the pic to the left taken from stage right. This is a point where they were pulling that oval lighting rig up toward the rafters to just underneath the dot matrix screens, visible from the rear at the very top of the picture. There was a separate drum kit on a rising platform with a gong and windchimes and all sorts of little cymbals and shit. They really only used it on "King of Pain," but after hearing it, I have to say that it was totally worth the trouble to put that thing in there. In any case, it really was a pretty awesome stage setup.

As far as the Police go, I really didn't have any direct business-type dealings with them at all. I couldn't help but notice that there was pretty much an entire truck full of shit exclusively for Sting's FOUR dressing rooms, because I spent all day wandering past them all. I would put up a picture of them if I had had the opportunity to photograph them, but they were pretty posh. The rooms we use for dressing rooms are extremely utilitarian, and they somehow turned them into palacial rooms. I have to give them a lot of credit for that.

Anyway, like I said my guys didn't show up until 4P, and once they did their manager told me straight up that they really didn't have anything for me to do, so I just went and hung out. I was just sitting down to watch the soundcheck when their manager, Eric, called me up and asked me to go to Guitar Center to get some Neutrik 1/4" connectors, so I had to roll and missed soundcheck. But that was fine; even though I had to go to Seven Corners and THEN go to Chuck Levin's in Wheaton 30 miles away after Guitar Center didn't have the specific brand they asked for. But I still made it back to Verizon in time for the Police, watched the entire show from stage right/left, at one point I was actually watching from UNDER the stage, it was awesome. They played everything that anyone would want to hear, starting with "Message In A Bottle,"(which I TOTALLY called), and of course included "Roxanne," and the greatest version of "King of Pain" I've ever heard.

I was released around 10P, but the Police were still onstage so I stuck around just to watch the show. They finished the main set just around then, but then played their encore for another 30 minutes. After they came off I just had to go drop off my rental van and go home. A real good day's work, one of the best I've ever had, and not just because I didn't really do anything significant all day. I had a really good time with this. I got to meet Stewart Copeland(briefly), didn't have to deal with Sting, got three squares in me on their dime, got released early, it was probably the best day I've ever had on the job.

So that was the Po-Po show. I'd love to have other days like this one, but alas, today was a luxury that someone on the lowest rung of live music is rarely afforded. In any case, I'll always remember this show, not because it was a rare non-stressful day, but because I genuinely cared that the show went well, not to mention that I was incapable of fucking it up for being assigned to the support act, but I don't read anything into that. I have to do what I'm told, and that's just the nature of the job...

THIS is harDCore Pt.1

Today I'm going to relate some old stories about something near and dear to my heart, what is affectionately known around these parts as "harDCore."

Some people might try to tell you that hardcore was invented in New York, or SoCal, or even, God forbid, the UK. Those people are idiots. Make no mistake, hardcore was born on the mean streets of the District. Even SoCal's most heralded hardcore band, Black Flag, didn't come into their own until Henry Rollins, a DC native, became their frontman.

Unfortunately I was too young to ever have seen the likes of Minor Threat, the Teen Idles, Government Issue, Youth Brigade, or the earliest incarnations of Bad Brains, among other harDCore legends, but I was definitely around for what I like to call the second wave, during the late 80's and early 90's. I saw bands like Damnation AD, Nation of Ulysses, Clutch, Swiz, Worlds Collide, Jawbox(who's practice/living space was right across the street from my high school), and Fugazi of course. Not to mention bands from other towns who would come through, like Darkside(NY), Integrity(Cleveland), Next Step Up(Baltimore), and Earth Crisis(Syracuse), just to name a few, some of which have become semi-famous, others who are long gone or still toil in obscurity, but ALL were just getting started at the time.

I saw these bands at tiny hole-in-the-wall clubs with names like the Re-Tox, the Safari, the 909, the Black Cat(which has become a fairly mainstream venue, but was brand new at the time), and even odder places like St. Stephen's Church and even community centers. Most of these places were down at the far end(i.e. the BAD end) of U street. You generally wanted to park as close to the spot as possible, walk straight to the door without looking anyone directly in the eyes, see the show, and repeat in reverse order on the way out. That whole corridor is much improved these days, but back then, it was the kind of place that if you didn't live there, you didn't go there, period. But we went anyway, because we were young, we loved the music, and we had no fear.

Not that bad shit didn't happen. Well, not to me personally, but shit definitely still hit the fan every now and then. Nothing all that serious, but every other show or so somebody would get a little too aggressive in the mosh pit and a brawl would break out. Everyone I went with would shit their pants when this happened, but I lived for it. Most of the time...

The first couple shows I went to I was like, "Look at all these scary people!" but for the most part, aside from the way they looked, they were decent kids. Everyone was well aware that we were all there to have a good time, so if you got knocked down in the pit, someone would always pick you up and make sure you were okay. Except at Integrity shows. I saw them a few times and something about them just drove all of these punk-rock kids insane. One show at the Safari Club I went with a few friends and everything was relatively calm for the opening bands, but as Integrity was about to come on, we all took our usual Integrity show spot, which was pinned up by the far rear wall, as far from the pit as possible. Integrity came on, and one of my boys turned to the rest of us and said, ominously, "I'm going in..." then he took off toward the stage. Literally 10 seconds later(if that), he comes out of the crowd toward us holding his face. "Is there something right here?" he asked us, pointing to his left cheek. We just stared in silence as we watched what looked like a second nose growing on our friends' face. It swelled up into this huge knot on his cheek that he had for like 2 weeks afterward. And that was the last time we ever saw Integrity.

There was lots of crazy shit that happened at those shows back in the day, but most of what I remember is hanging with my boys, talking punk rock with the skins and X's, comparing notes with all the other kids. Like I said, these were all pretty scary looking people, big-ass hardcore dudes with metal all in their face, tall skinny X's in leather and spikes, skins in black jackets with chains and tats, but once you talked to them, they were all pretty cool kids, and we all shared a certain anger and misanthropy that united us all together. And the irony was that these events all took place in the worst black neighborhoods in the city. Standing out on U street with a bunch of skinheads and punks, with brothers all over the place, driving by slowly and staring at us. Now when I say skinheads, I'm not talking about neo-Nazis, I'm talking about straightedge kids with shaven heads and X's on their hands. A neo-Nazi wouldn't last 10 seconds in a city whose residents are something like 90% black. There was certainly the potential for an ugly situation at every last one of the shows I went to, but the brothers seemed to understand what was happening and they basically ignored us. God bless DC! I love this town and everything in it except the politicians.

I haven't been to a harDCore show in over a decade, and I really have no idea what state the scene is in these days, but I wish that I could go back, I wish that I could have seen more, been into it earlier, gone to more shows, savored it while it was happening. I realize that people 10 years older than me will probably shit all over the bands that I liked then, but it was real to me, it meant something to me, just like Minor Threat and GI meant so much to them. I may not be plugged in to the scene today, but I still know and appreciate the history, and I'll continue to keep the faith for as long as I live. harDCore forever and ever!

Welcome To My Nightmare

Howdy!

I'm evil D. I work as a runner/PA for a large concert promoter(which shall remain unnamed) in the DC metropolitan area, and it is here you will find exclusive pics and anecdotes from backstage at live events from venues all over the DC area, including Verizon Center, the Warner Theatre, Constitution Hall, the Patriot Center, and the Kennedy Center.

I've been doing this for just under a year, and I've worked at concerts for a vast range of artists, including Meat Loaf, Godsmack, John Mayer, Ben Folds, Faith Hill, Weird Al Yankovic, Widespread Panic, Aly and AJ, Three Days Grace, Stevie Wonder, Genesis, if they've come through here in the last year or so, I was there.

The work is certainly interesting, I'll tell you that much. For one thing, all of those things that you think go on backstage at concerts, all those crazy things you've heard or read about in magazines or TV or movies, I hate to disapppoint but that's pretty much bullshit. Things like trashed dressing rooms, wild demands, naked debauchery, piles of drugs and gallons of alcohol, those things I have yet to see. I'm sure those things occur every now and then, but all the shows I've worked I have yet to witness anything remotely approaching that.

So what is it that I do? It's actually pretty mundane to tell you the truth. Typically there are at least 2 show runners, sometimes it's just me, depending on how many runners the band(s) have specified in their tour rider/contract. Basically there's a runner's list with a bunch of shit on it that the band or crew has requested. Things like MagLite batteries, SD cards, sections of piping, and other random shit that the crew needs for that show or the next one, and there's almost always a grocery list to stock the tour bus(es). Other duties include driving the tour bus drivers to a hotel(so they can sleep before having to drive all night to the next city), or chauffering crew members around town to get clothes tailored or some other shit, or taking the band's laundry to the cleaners; basically my job is to run these people's errands so they can focus on the show. Not to mention that they're from Canada or England or California or wherever and they wouldn't have the first clue where or how to accomplish these things. I'm also usually responsible for getting a bunch of menus to the tour manager so the band and crew can select something for dinner(because God forbid they have to eat in catering with the rest of us; they already paid for the shit), and then picking it up and delivering it to the dressing rooms or buses.

Other than that, whenever the tour manager doesn't need me to do anything, my job is to hang around and keep my eyes and ears open. You see, the local promoter is generally stuck in his venue office doing paperwork and shit, so I have to inform him of any requests that I cannot satisfy on my own. I'm pretty much a middle-man in those situations, i.e. I hear that Weird Al just fucked up his Michael Jackson suit and needs someone to come in and fix it, I take that to my boss and he gets on the horn to bring someone in to sew it up. Or sometimes it's just a matter of finding someone and delivering a message to them, or running some comped tickets and backstage passes up to will call, little stuff that no one else has time to bother with.

The days are exceedingly long, like early morning to late, late night. A typical day lasts from 7 or 8 AM to 2 or 3 in the morning, but there is a LOT of downtime involved. I'll be running around all over the city getting shit for the band and crew for an hour or two, then I'll just be sitting around for 4 or 5 hours doing pretty much nothing. At least I get fed three squares. I've worked with or around food my whole life and yet this is the first job where I've ever been fed. Funny.

So anyway, that's the long and short of it. I will be updating this after each show with pics and stories, and the weeks I have no show, I will regale you with anecdotes from concerts I've done in the past. Check back often, I have a lot of funny and/or wack tales. This Friday I've got J.Lo and Marc Antony, then I've gotta go away for the weekend, but I'll put up any pics and stories from that by Monday. Until then, peace!