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Loud And Proud With An Unruly Crowd
Contributed by: Pam DeBord on 8/14/2008

Let us return to that mythical summer, not of love for our fellow man with flowers and beads in our hair, but to that summer of new special edition Chevy pickup trucks painted red, white, and blue. Ah yes, the summer of the bicentennial, 1976. Come with me if you will to St. Paul, Minnesota to witness the awesome unbridled and as yet unmatched sheer power of the Who. Oh yeah, this was three years before the tragic incident at Riverside Stadium in Cincinnati when a fan could still experience the excitement of pushing, shoving, scratching, and clawing your way ever closer to the front of the stage to bask in the glory of your musical heroes. Now, even though we'd waited outside for hours in anticipation of that magical moment, when they finally threw open the doors and everyone rushed in to claim their 4 x 4 inch square of floor space, we weren't all that happy with where we'd ended up. I mean we were at least 40 feet from the front of the stage. And it didn't seem to matter how many people were in front of us as we tapped them on the right shoulder and slipped in front them on their left as they glanced over thier shoulder, risking a punch to the back of the head, we just couldn't be satisfied with our vantage point. Now came that serendipitous moment when we all had the same spontanious and seemingly brilliant idea. If there is such a thing as an instananious group inspiration, this was it. My freinds and I all looked at each other and nodded, we knew what we were going to do. A quick sideward glance to the left and a knowing nod to each other and off we went. Well, as far off as one can go on crowded stadium floor, which meant to the far left side of the crowd where the corner wall with a railing stood that seperated the seats from the floor. We grabbed Bob first. Bob had just left the Marine Corps, he was strong in mind and body. After we hoisted him on top of our shoulders so he could grab the railing and pull himself up, the rest of us just had to jump up and grab his hand. Doc next, then me, then Joe, Don and Huey. Once we were up on that railing we knew we'd chosen wisely. What a view! We were just slightly above stage level and could see everything so much better than those poor shmucks who were craning their necks just to get their foreheads almost to stage level. I mean, I've been there, yeah, you're close but all you can really see is the top of the heads of the musicians. There it was for us though, we could see it all, Pete's Hi-watt stacks, Keith's double bass drum, John's huge bass cabs. What a view. The show was about to start, the anticipation was intense as we, and everyone in the entire stadium, was in a state of hightened alert. You know that feeling you get when you're just about to get into a fight and you know there is no way out but violence? Well, that was it, adrenalin to the nth degree as we tightly clenched the hand rail with our rear ends precariously balanced on the rail as we rocked back and forth trying not spill over backwards or worse, fall 15 feet into the crowd below. This was, after all, well before stage diving became a part of the live musical experience. Apparently however, we had forgotten to wear our invisibility cloaks, as the people seated directly behind us took offense to the fact that we had entirely blocked their view. Of course the verbal jabs they spewed at us meant nothing, I mean hey, all's fair in love, war, and Who concerts....right? So the lights go down and all of a sudden, not entirely unexpected (I probably would have done the same thing), we are pummeled with flying debris, and then punched in the back of our heads.. Then kicked, hard in the small of our backs non-stop for the next two hours. Did we falter? Of course not! We were as outnumbered as the Texans at the Alamo. But more determined to survive. And survive we did. I have yet to experince that much aggression, machismo, testoterone and brute force unleashed onto the audience, and that was just from the row of fans stuck directly behind us. Heck, the Who themsevles almost mustered up that much mayhem on stage! Upon returning home that day is when I realized you only urinate blood for about 24 hours or so after several good solid kicks to your kidneys. But ultimately, I think the reason all my friends and I, and even all the fans seated behind us, enjoyed that show so much is because we were all still so young. Oh jeez, wait a sec. I just realized that summer in Minnesota that year started about the second week of July and autumn made it's presence known around the first of of August. Hmmmm....actually the concert was in March...never mind. Submitted by Ed DeBord


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Pam DeBord

Castle Rock , CO

Pam DeBord has posted 4 stories and 1 comment since joining on 8/18/2006. Pam DeBord 's average story rating is 4.67.
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