One of the more bizarre things that have happened to me at or during a Rush concert occurred during intermission. Right before the end of the last song ("One Little Victory") of the first set I left my seat to beat the huge crowd up the stairs from the floor to get to the rest room and purchase a replacement pin for one that had fallen off my jacket at some point during travel. It was the flashy Rush pin that cost $5 at the swag counter. Success. I was the first person in the men's room.
The song ended and thousands of people poured into the concourse to do the same. I ran over to the nearest place to buy the button and just kind of got in line from the side. There was already a huge swarm going on and all I wanted was a $5 button. This woman about five people behind and to the left of me was bitching at people in front of her, including a guy in front of me and also directly aimed at me.
"I left my seat three songs ago so I could get my stuff and you people are cutting me off!!!" she shrieked. "You people are cutting in line and you aren't going to buy anything! Don't let them buy anything because I was here first!"
At first I just ignored it. But it became constant and incessant - and new barrages of insults were being thrown out by this young, obviously passionate woman.
"It was your decision to leave your seat three songs early," I said. "And it does not
take 15 minutes during the show to buy something. All I'm getting is a $5 pin so maybe you should just chill out," I said. "It will take me 10 seconds to make my purchase." And I held up perfect change in the form of a $5 bill to try and calm her down. "All I'm getting is a $5 button." But it just didn’t matter.
And of course we both arrived at the counter at roughly the same time. She was still screaming about leaving her seat and I'm an idiot and all this stuff and don't give him anything because he cut in line. I just looked at the merchandise person behind the counter, asked for a the five dollar pin, handed her the cash, took the pin, and whirled around to get the hell out of there. Done. Five seconds. Not a very nice Rush fan, I thought to myself and hurriedly turned away from the counter because it was difficult withholding what I really wanted to say to her.
But as I tried to make a quick exit away from the scene, my pin-covered jacket opened up away from my body and swung outward a little bit. There was a big crowd of people packed in all around me, and the next thing I hear is ANOTHER woman screaming. So now I'm really trying to get out of there faster. Only I can not. I am being held
back by some strange force pulling on my jacket. And I'm thinking it's the boyfriend of little Miss Left Her Seat Three Songs Early getting ready to deck me for "cutting in line."
As you can imagine, this happened in the span of maybe 2.5 seconds.
I literally put my left arm up in front of my face expecting a fist to come flying at me as I turn around to see what the deal is - but instead of a flying fist or the angry chick - what I see is even more shocking.
My jacket had swung open and wide and had come in contact with a nice woman who had long black hair down to her waist. Huge frizzy hair. All I could see was frizzy hair - everywhere. The jacket brushed her hair and her hair got wrapped around a Roll the Bones pin (of all the pins - being in Vegas it HAD to be that one). Oh my god I said to myself - this is not happening!
And she's saying, "Oh my god! My hair! Oh my god! My hair! Oh my god! My hair!" over and over and over again.
This is now complete pandemonium. Over a $5 pin.
And then everyone in the swarm around the swag shack is looking at this new scene with a second woman shrieking at me, and I'm thinking, well, I guess now I'm being punished for "cutting in line" and I'm sure little Miss Left Her Seat Three Songs Early is enjoying seeing me in my next dilemma. I must have deserved it, she must have been thinking.
Hair wrapped around a pin on the jacket has never happened before. Like, never. So I have no idea of what to do with this three foot long section of hair with maybe about 10 hairs wrapped around the pin. The woman kept twirling around trying to free herself of course, and now the whole thing is a true mess with hair wrapped around the button like a fish snagged in so much line. Her head is tilted almost sideways with her skull facing me.
"Ho, ho! Ho! Wait! Stop! Hold still!" I plead. "Don't move!" Then people around us are acting like I'm assaulting this woman. "Oh my god, look what happened!" "He caught her hair on his jacket and he's killing her!"
Oh this was bad. Very bad. Very, very bad.
A complete mess. The real bitch about the situation was that to avoid losing pins in huge crowds and situations such I was currently entrapped, I have bent, sewed, soldered and super glued each and every pin on the jacket so that they would NOT come off if bumped or rubbed against. There never has been a hair emergency in my jacket disaster contingency plan. My biggest concern was always someone holding a knife or a gun up to me and demanding the jacket. I’d be ready to fight or die in that situation. But this, this was something altogether – more terrifying.
Hair girl finally calmed down and got a hold of herself and her hair and I moved closer to her so her hair was not being pulled (it was never really pulled too much to begin with, really, not like a neck breaker or anything, I swear!). I was not even going to touch her hair. I was going to let the woman handle it herself. She was freaking big time and there was no way I was going to get involved more than I humanly had to. I think that is what a male is supposed to do in such feminine emergencies. Just let the woman take care of it and or take directions and perform tasks as directed.
Unfortunately, with the rest of her big hair in and hanging down around her face, she just
tried to yank the hair out of the situation, and ended up winding it more and more around the pin. At which point I asked to intervene, as it was getting worse, not better.
It was a complete mess. It was wrapped around the pin so much now that it seemed hopeless. "Please, very carefully move the REST of your hair away from my jacket," I pleaded. "Let's not get caught anywhere else, okay?" Then she realized this could become a true nightmare and complied, very carefully making sure the rest of her hair was out of the way. One swing of her head, and she'd have to shave her head or walk around stuck to
my jacket for the entire second set, which would actually probably work in her favor. She could come down to the seventh row center with me. Now this was true entertainment for those in the swag line. Fantastic stuff.
In desperation I turned the jacket over a little and found the back of the pin in question. But even before I found the pin back I knew the effort was going to be fruitless. I knew for a fact that this particular pin was a double - bent AND super glued onto the jacket. Nothing short of a blow torch and a pair of pliers was going to get that pin off of the jacket. But I had to try. It was useless. I had done too good of a job securing that particular pin to the jacket. My fingernail was about to break in half trying to get the pin back off. "Good move, very useful," I said to myself in my head. "Well, at least we know the pins are not coming off the jacket anymore."
Other women came to the scene in sympathy of the woman, but not me. I was the Evil Hair Grabbing Monster Who Cuts People off in the Swag Line for a $5 Pin and Attacks People with my Big Bad Vest at Rush concerts.
By some miracle after about five full minutes of struggling in this bad dream (I was at the point where I wanted to just cut the hair off and run but I had nothing to do that with), the hair came loose and I was free. Or she was free. Or something like that. I crossed my arms around my chest, bringing the jacket in as close to my body as possible and quite literally pushed my way out of the gauntlet that was the swag shack line – and the crowd of curious onlookers - and headed in the direction that presented the amount of least resistance. To my recollection, that was to the right.
Dazed and still confused I came back to reality and regained my senses to find myself re-entering the arena at the very back of the reserved seating area. I guess it was a good representation of what had just happened. I was as far away from where it all began as possible. I pulled back the curtains and looked for a path back down to the floor. The usher at the top of the lower level asked to see my ticket.
"That's a really cool jacket," she said. "You must be a big Rush fan."
Silence for a few moments.
"Yeah, you wouldn't believe how much attention it gets at the shows," I said, attempting to calm my frazzled nerves. Attention? I think it almost got me tar and feathered a few short minutes ago.
There is a responsibility that comes with wearing the jacket in the form of visibility and
behavior, really. If you are a "super fan" and you are flaunting it, it means being nice
and courteous and happy to everyone who looks at it or comments about it or approaches me about it. Which means I re-gained my composure very quickly and took a look at the usher and said, "Thank you, are you enjoying the show tonight even from back here? The stage show is awesome, isn't it?"
And as I re-focused my attention, I couldn't help but see how beautiful this usher was. She had straight up perfect blue eyes, an angelic, pale and lightly blushed, angular, thin face, shoulder length straight blonde hair that curled inward at her shoulders and the top of her head maybe reached my chin, petite, thin and looked like a movie star or something.
"Well, to tell you the truth this is not really the kind of music I listen to," she said. "I like
more acoustical type of music and not so loud."
"Oh, well, then you will like this second set," I said. "After the drum solo they play two unplugged acoustical songs when the drummer is taking a break after the solo, so you should pay attention to those two songs and see if you like them."
And of course I am now completely physically attracted to this usher and want to take her down to the seventh
row with me. But I was slapped back into reality by two things. The first was the size of the diamond rock
on her left hand and the second was common sense. I had just pissed off one woman to the point of her yelling
obscenities at the swag shack and had seemingly almost decapitated another victim in the last seven minutes with my Rush jacket. And here I was thinking of hitting on the movie star looking usher in Vegas wanting to ask her out for a good time after the show. I am the definition of an idiot. But at least I recognize this. And rather quickly. Usually it takes me a while to figure it out, time and time again.
"I have to get back to my seat now," I say, feeling somewhat - guilty. "The second set is going to start any minute.
Thank you." And I headed down the full length of the stairs at the back of the arena and onto the floor for the proud
walk all the way to the stage. When I passed the sound board the house lights dropped and I was immediately
incredibly happy. Under the cover of darkness I retreated to my seat and when the first synthesized notes
of "Tom Sawyer" blasted from the stacks and the house P.A. system to open the second set I became immersed
in the music. Thank god.
I again felt the pangs of wanting to take more photos - and then the thought hit me like a ton of bricks.
If ONLY I had had my camera at the swag shack. The Attacking Killer Jacket, the Woman Who Left Her Seat Three Songs
Early and the swag shack onlookers. It would have looked like some kind of action war shot - bloody combat from
a correspondant in the jungle. I believe if I had handed the camera off to a nearby male sympathizer
that maybe that photo would have been the best shot of 28 rolls of film I shot up to that point. I would have
submitted it to Andrew McNaughtan (official band photographer) for the next tour book. Or maybe some fictional publication
like "Tour Merchandising Review," "Swag Shack Scuffles," "Gorrilla Tactics on Tour," etc., etc.
What a trip. And I thought there wasn't anything really exciting about Vegas. Ha!