Party Like A Rockstar!!

The last weekend in April was a music packed time full of great friends, family, loud music, and partying like a rock star.  Any of you who read Boots to No Boots...Music, Tequila and Epileptic Dancing probably remember my friends, The DB Bryant Band. 

If you’ve never heard these guys, check them out. They’re awesome!

They were back in town that weekend and once again, the party had begun.  This time, the band parked their trailer at my BFF and her husband’s home, so the party didn’t stop when the bars closed. 

They arrived in town for their first night of playing on Wednesday, and played at several different locations continuing until Saturday night.  So after three nights of partying like rock stars (two of which I had to work the next day), I spent the night at my BFFs house Friday night and awoke early with Little Love to look at all the pics we had taken.  We then all lounged around by the pool for a few hours (none of us are as young and babeilicious as we once were so no pics were taken).  Don’t think I got off that easy though.  My pool lounging time was short lived before I had to accompany man friend to a fund raising event in Savannah.  Tired and dragging ass, we made the hour and a half long drive to Savannah, driving by our destination twice before finally finding it.  It was a low country boil for a union employee who’d been seriously injured on the job.  We pigged out, made our contribution, then headed back to Onion City for our last night with the DB Bryant Band. 

That Saturday was probably the only Saturday night out that I was glad that bars closed at midnight, because after four days of late nights and tequila I was wore out…but my weekend wasn’t over yet.  My cousin would be at my house at about 6 a.m. to pick me up for a drive to Jacksonville, FL where we’d be attending the hard rock festival “Welcome to Rockville” featuring 15 bands including Korn, Evanescence, POD, Shinedown, Trivium, Halestorm, Five Finger Death Punch, and many more.  Oh the horrors of my life!  (I know, it’s rough to have so much awesome shit to do!)

We arrive in the Jacksonville Beach area at about 9:00 a.m.  The festival doesn’t begin until about 11:30, but we were meeting my cousin’s longtime friend, gonna grab a bite to eat, find our hotel and then get there early so we could find decent parking.  Cuz’s biggest bitch about when they went last year was that it cost $8-10 for a drink so it cost him a shit-ton of money and he barely caught a buzz, so he had a plan this year…tailgating with beer and whiskey and going IN with a buzz. 

We arrived in time to find decent parking and the party begun.  I love to people watch, so watching the people come strolling in was awesome.  There were people from all walks of life walking by us, or parked and partying near us.  From the freaks with so many piercings in their faces and ears that they could make swiss cheese jealous, to the purple spiked mohawk wearers and the old hippies with the long dirty matted hair, it was a regular smorgasbord of freaks to look at, then mix in the girls of all ages dressed from hookers to hard core rockers or swiss cheese wannabes…it was fantastic! 

We sat on the tailgate of Cuz’s truck drinking a beer pointing out different people, me occasionally feeling the need to roll the guys’ tongues back into their mouths for fear someone would trip over them as they drooled over scantily clad young ladies wearing skirts that any shorter would have been belts.  Cuz’s 17 year old son was with us, and he decided he’d had enough tailgating and went on in to listen to the beginning bands (which we could hear just fine from the tailgate with our cooler) so he left us and the whiskey was brought out.  Shortly after, a homeless black man comes walking by with a plastic bag and Cuz decides to befriend the man and offers him a beer.  When we decided to go inside, the homeless man was left in charge of watching the truck and making sure no one messed with it…for a small fee of course.

Cuz was already tore up, and in the mood to mosh.  For those of you who don’t know what moshing is, or a mosh pit, it’s a bunch of angry men who basically beat the shit out of each other as they jump and bang into one another, moving around in a circular pattern to the music, usually in the middle of a large crowd of people.  It’s like head banging on steroids.  Oh, and there seems to be an unspoken but widely understood rule in moshing that the moshers cannot wear shirts. 

The first band we see is Trivium, followed by POD.  Since a mosh pit had yet to be found, Cuz decides to create one…right next to me.  Suddenly there are a bunch of half-naked men, violently jumping and bumping into each other (and me) as they widen the area in the middle of the large group of concert goers and more and more violent men join in.  Trying to put some distance between me and them and not be caught in the middle of this, Cuz’s friend steps between me and the moshers playing interference, steps on my shoe, and as I try and step back, POP…broken shoe.  I was already wearing the WRONG shoes to begin with for such an event, but now I was wearing no shoes, and the afternoon was just beginning. 

Oh well, I tuck my shoes into my belt and carry on barefoot!  Within minutes, Cuz resurfaces blood coming out of his mouth, smiling wickedly like a mad man with blood in his teeth, then jumps back in for round two.  When he resurfaced after round two with a badly injured knee he came to the realization that he wasn’t as young and in shape as the guys in the pit and had enough moshing, so we went to find a spot to rest and some ice for his knee.

After insisting that he put the ice on his knee I went in search of food.  Food and the pain to his knee had a sobering effect on Cuz and we had a fairly uneventful rest of the evening as we danced and swayed to the music of Halestorm, Evanescence, Five Finger Death Punch and then Shinedown.  They were all awesome, but Shinedown was very interactive and a lot of fun.  We were fairly close to the stage and packed in like sardines with thousands of people trying to get closer and closer.  The lead singer starts giving the crowd instructions like when to sway, when to jump, when to put an arm around the concert goer to this side or that.  People were being passed overhead from all directions and you had to be on the lookout or they could be dropped on your head if you didn’t help pass them over (which happened a couple times before I got smart and started watching behind me). It was a lot of fun, but I was just sure I was gonna have a broken toe or ten out of it before it was over.  Luckily I escaped with only a few minor bruises and scratches.

By the end of Shinedown, we were pooped and decided to find a seat and sit Korn out while we waiting on the teenage son.  The next day I realized two things…1)  I am not a teenager anymore and my rockstar filled weekend had wore me slap out; and 2) I really appreciate a good weekend where I can get in some good quality drool time with my pillows.  When I finally made it home the next day, I lazed around trying to recover before I began another work week.  It was a great weekend, but boy I was glad it was over.