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Recently I went to see Radiohead play up at Merriweather Post
Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, and it was without a doubt the
most horrible concert experience I have ever had. I blame the
horrible, wretched little pissant state of Maryland for this.
Merriweather is a damned old venue (Hendrix played there), but
it's going to be torn down in the near future, and I have to say
I'll be glad to see it go. Not only that, but I must insist that
the entire state of Maryland be destroyed as well.
The concert was on a Wednesday night, so I'd taken the entire
day off work to have plenty of time to drive from Richmond,
Virginia up to the show and avoid DC rush hour traffic. There
was only one hitch: a friend of mine who works in DC had our
group's tickets, so I was going to have to swing up there and
pick him up on the way to the show. This would involve some rush
hour traffic, but the show was at 6:30 with two opening bands
(or so I thought), so I figured we'd still have plenty of time
to get there without missing anything important.
Everything was going wonderfully, and despite DC being layed out
in such a labyrinthine manner that you'd expect to run into a
wandering minotaur, we managed to follow my friend's directions
and get to his workplace with relative ease. It was at this
point that my friend, let's call him Dead Meat, decided to
inform us that he had forgotten the tickets at home and we were
going to have to drive back to his home in northern Virginia to
get them. Our evening was quickly turning into the plot of a bad
Ashton Kutcher movie. After several threats of grievous bodily
harm, we were on our way in the exact opposite direction of the
concert. This whole little excursion cost us an hour. Much as I
would like to blame Maryland for this, even my sheer hatred for
that state will not allow such false accusations.
One interesting thing happened on the way up the gigantic
traffic jam around DC known as the Beltway that we all
mistakenly took for a good omen, which we were desperate for as
we were running late. We were listening to a cd brought by the
other guy in my car (let's call him Other Guy) by The
Persuasions, called "Frankly Acapella", where they do a whole
lot of acapella Frank Zappa covers. We had just gotten go the
song "You Are What You Is" when in the left lane passed a car
with two cute girls, a "Zappa Lives" sign in the back window,
and a license plate URWTUIS or some such that was unmistakably
an abbreviation of the song we were listening to at that very
moment. Holy shit! What are the odds of that?
We then made the rather poor decision of getting off I-95 and
taking an alternate route to Columbia, which eventually led to
our sitting on the exit ramp to get into Columbia for an hour
and a half (I know this because we got through NOFX's "So Long
and Thanks For All the Shoes" two and a half times). We even saw
people pulling their cars off to the side and abandoning them to
walk to the concert. When we FINALLY got to the end of the exit
ramp, we saw what was causing the insane delay. Some fuckhead's
car had died RIGHT at the end of the exit ramp, and they just
abandoned it and left it there! He couldn't be bothered to
actually push the car OFF the road so he just left it there and
said "Fuck all the thousands of people behind me! I don't want
to miss the concert!"
Not to mention the ever-helpful police. They had set up cones in
the OTHER lane on the exit ramp so nobody could use it, instead
diverting everyone into the lane with the dead car. Fucking
brilliant, guys. They were also ALL over the place, I mean cops
were everywhere. But instead of actually directing traffic or
doing something useful, they were pulling "guard duty" on the
parking lot of Merriweather, which was already full anyway. But
they made damn sure nobody tried to get into that overflowing
parking lot! Maryland's finest, I salute you!
We finally got to the concert (after parking at the mall across
the street) and we were confronted with a solid wall of people
the likes of which I have never seen. At least not at
Merriweather. Most of the time people have room to lay out
blankets and sit down on the lawn if they want to. This night
they were packed in like sardines. It was like a frat party up
on the hill. We managed to wedge our way into the side of the
crowd just in time to enjoy two songs before Radiohead left the
stage. What the fuck?? A few minutes later they came back out to
play the first encore. I was furious. I was really willing the
red eyebeams I've always wanted to finally manifest, so that I
could cut down the crowd like Cyclops from the X-Men. This was
compounded by the drunken idiot who was standing next to me,
loudly exclaiming to his friends that he loved Radiohead because
they played weird instruments. He then expressed bewilderment at
the "strange sounds" that were coming from the guy who was
"pounding a keyboard with a
piece of metal" while those of us with brains clearly saw him
playing a xylophone on the giant monitor. Fuck the eyebeams, I
would have settled for a powerful fart that smelled like rotting
flesh at that point.
Oh, and speaking of the monitor it was the only way to see the
band at all. At one point I caught a glimpse of Thom Yorke's
head through the crowd, and I became excited. I also thought
"Damn, that cat's got a BIG fucking head" before I realized that
I was actually seeing ANOTHER large monitor at the back of the
stage. Once I think I may have actually seen a real member of
the band on the stage itself, but it may have also been a speck
of dirt that had gotten on my glasses. I'm not really sure.
After hearing a mere eight songs, the concert was over. Then it
was time to get the fuck out of dodge. Given that thousands of
other people were also trying to leave the city at the same
time, we decided to get some dinner to kill time. After all, it
was 10pm, and what better time for dinner is there? We wanted to
avoid the Maryland drivers as much as possible, because they all
drive like they are playing Grand Theft Auto with all the cheat
codes activated simultaneously. Either that or they forget they
are driving and decide to play the "let's park on the highway"
game. Those are pretty much the only two modes of a Maryland
driver. It's like someone flipping a switch.
To top things off, we decided to stop by a Wendy's on the way
back and get ourselves some Frosties. After all, we earned them.
Unfortunately, this particular Wendy's we stopped at only seemed
to have the "tastes almost like really shitty cheesecake but
actually more like sour milk" flavor, which is odd since
Frosties only come in one flavor (or so I thought) and there is
nothing remotely dairy in them. In any event, we could only
stomach a few bites before we became disgusted and threw them
away. I blame Maryland for that. I think the Wendy's was in
Virginia, but the shipment of Frosty mix must have come from
Maryland. I'm sure of it.
Maryland state bird, the Baltimore Oriole,
contemplates
taking a huge dump on Protoclown's head just to
make
sure that this was one of the worst days of his life.
I finally got home just after 3am, having to get up for work at
7 the next morning. I also blame Maryland for that. I blame
Maryland for the big purple bags that are still under my eyes
from lack of sleep, making me look like a zombie extra from a
George Romero film. I blame Maryland for the fact that I drove a
total of 10 hours to see Radiohead play for 40 minutes. I blame
Maryland for tacking on a parking fee to the ticket price and
then setting up cops outside the parking lot to specifically
ensure that I would NOT park in the lot that I had paid to park
in. I blame Maryland for global warming and plate tectonics. I
blame Maryland for the fact that a hot dog and beer that a
coworker who was also at the show bought cost $16. I blame
Maryland for the fact that Radiohead started playing at 7:45
because of some supposed local ordinance prohibiting loud noise
after 10pm. Mostly I just blame Maryland for sucking. At least
it's not as bad as Delaware. I mean, I've never been to
Delaware, it could be really cool. But can you imagine it doing
anything BUT sucking?
note: Delaware has no sales tax,
unlike Protoclown, who adds on an additional 5% for every trick
he pulls.
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