It was the summer of 2001. Most of us were all completely single, but we were all idiots. I was 21. Most everybody else was 21 as well, but at least 21 as I think it was maybe just past this weekend in 2001, thus making Brandon the final one of us going to the party to be of legal age.
I guess every year, at least for a few years, Rolling Rock beer sponsored a festival concert in the middle of the summer. The year before was I believe the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters, what should have been a great show. The 2001 lineup included what I believe was Staind and Incubus (before they became boraphyl), Live, Tantric, Deftones, and Stone Temple Pilots. At the time, Tantric was an awesome band. Their first record had just come out and they were like hard rock-acoustic type of bands that I was really looking forward to seeing perform. Deftones were still making good music, and this was probably the last year I would have wanted to see them. Incubus had just released that album with the Pardon Me song that seemed to make everybody suddenly like them. Live was live, so whatever. And STP was far and away my favorite band of all time.
It happened so many years ago that I forget who all was there. We may have taken upwards of four cars, but I distinctly recall 3 cars - driven by Brandon, Dave Jacobs, and Jeff Dixon. Other attendees of the trip included Tim Beitz, Chris Kerr, and the rest are blurs of maybe they were there maybe they weren't - including Bryan Selm, Nick Tsigos, and whoever else I cannot recall at the moment. My apologies, but that was 11 years ago now.
The drive was long, and I remember Jim Lipski telling us that we should start seeing signs for West Virginia when we were approaching Latrobe, PA. We laughed at him. Sure as I am short, that formerly fat bastard was right. Anywho, the drive lasted longer than it should have as we took practically the entire length of I-76, the Pennsylvania Turnpike for you out of state-ers. I was in Brandon's car along with maybe just Big Jim Robinson. We were the last car in our entourage. When we stopped at a rest stop for gas, we noticed Tim was in Jacobs' car - a Mitsubishi Galant - that had the "GA" missing from it's name Galant. When we saw Tim get in to the car, we started joking how Tim put the "gay" in galant. We joked about that to ourselves for hours on the trip. Suddenly, rain started, and almost every car with a Pennsylvania license plate was pulled over and waiting for the storm to pass. We were amazed at how many wimps we drove past on our way to rock greatness.
We got to the hotel some time in the afternoon, and instead of having like 3 or 4 rooms like we requested, they had given us 2 rooms. So dudes sleeping on top of dudes. I would like to think that perhaps Chris Anderson was with us as well as he was working hard on getting the rooms set up as Kerr and I walked out to the parking lot and started cracking open our Molsen's and Rolling Rock. I think the rooms were acquired as we requested, just all a little separated. I think all but one of the rooms we had had their bathrooms converted into ice cold beer refrigerators. Our bathtubs were full of ice and beers, and there was a local Sheetz right outside of our hotel. As we were loading up our beers to get them cold and ready for the night, Brandon was unpacking several, uh, "adult" magazines - inlcuding, but not limited to Busty, Club Cheri, Club International, and Ebony Butts. These items would be key to Brandon's involvement in the concert the next day.
I know we went to the hotel bar after we were set for the night and Brandon was there doing his newest bar move...the "slip the bartender a $20 while shaking his hand and saying 'remember my name is Brandon and these guys are my friends, so let's take care of them, ok' while everybody else saw you do it" trick. Brandon also ran the pool table all night long hustling black guys and other bar patrons. We may or may not have driven to a bar in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and we may or may not have talked trash to Steelers fans and we may or may not have witnessed Brandon's trick with the $20 and we may or may not have let Kerr drive us home in an inappropriate state. Not proud of it but that happened back then.
The next day was thee concert. We heard that we needed to leave really early as traffic would be horrendous. As we were all getting ready to leave, Brandon was in a mini panic. He was tearing up the room.. We asked him what was wrong, and, believe it or not, he was losing his shit because he lost his issue of "Busty." It was crazy. We were getting ready to leave and he said he was not going to leave until he got his magazine. He decided to stay back. And thus all of us was talking about how we thought Brandon just stayed behind to play pool and that he did not really want to be at the show, which was generally accepted.
The concert itself was insanely good. I think we got there as Tantric was finishing up. I liked what I saw, and there as a decent crowd of people for them. We spent our time trying to get free beer tickets so that the Rolling Rock could flow like water. Deftones came on and Big Jim appeared to be taken aback by what he was hearing. At the time, Big Jim was an All-American Hammer Thrower. I was a Real American weight lifter. He insisted on us going into the mosh pit. The pit had its share of huge guys, but they were no match for the Big Jim Little Duba wrecking balls combination. Jim had mud caked up under his eye and looked like a savage. I took an elbow in the stomach at one point, I think during the song "Engine No. 9" that doubled me over. Immediately somebody's body cracked into my head, slamming it to the left with a loud cracking of bone. My brain went blank and I thought I could not move. Sure enough another body slammed into my head, forcing it in the opposite direction and making even more crunching/cracking noises. And just like that I was back up and slam dancing again as everything seemed normal. Jim and I decided to partake in the mosh pit again during Staind's performance.
By this point, I was very dehydrated, and not wasted. I cannot recall if anybody was drunk, but rather just sick from tailgating followed by vicious heat and dehydration. Still no sign of Brandon though. We did think that if Brandon showed up, he would be able to easily find us amongst the thousand of people. I was worse for the wear, so I hustled up to the water tank for some hydration. The tanks were empty and people were getting aggravated, so I left to go back to the show. I believe it as Dixon who told me I should get crowd surfed to the front and act like I was going to faint. I sure did, and it worked. I was given a few minutes in the air conditioned room and drank several bottles of water.
The next phase of the concert involved a war between the people who had been in the pit all day and those standing on the perimeter. The rain from the day before had made the field in the pit complete mush. The people in the pit were launching mud across the field at the dry ones and the dry ones were actually throwing bottles. STP eventually came on and Kerr and I had decided it was time to pick a side and we joined the mudder side. We spoke with the security guards about the situation and they said it was all okay because of what they got to see. With that the guard pointed to a "wash tub" with several women undressing before and hoping in, asking for people to clean them off. Kerr and I were right there, but we aren't "wash you off and tell later"" kind of guys.
We somehow found our way back to Dixon's jeep. Jim and I sat in the back, and I can only remember that we finally got drunk again and were trying to rehydrate only with Sprite. Jim threw up violently several times out the back of Jeff's jeep. We were stuck in traffic before eventually returning to the hotel. We saw Brandon in the bar and started busting his ball about not showing up. He insisted, and still does to this day, that he was there, for the last two songs STP played and since he saw it from the entrenceway he was able to get home quicker than the rest of us.
When we were going back to our rooms, we noticed a loud group of people, with some voices sounding familiar. I cannot remember who all was there, but it was a group of younger kids from our home town. I only remember Mike Pons. Pons and I went to Sheetz late that night to get some food. We came back only to find that Brandon's interior car light was on. We go to check it out and sure enough Brandon is in there, sneak eating a sandwhich. Pons called him a closet eater.
We woke up the next day, not seeing Tim any where. Eventually there was a knock on our door, and it was Tim. He came in and started telling us a story about how he hooked up with one of the girls from the younger crew from our home town. We started asking him for the disgusting guy details when he suddenly cut us off and said all he did was make out with the girl. This prompted Jacobs to say, "So wait...you drove 7 hours away to a strange random town just to only hook up with a girl from Cinnaminson?" Before we could even laugh at that line, Big Jim blurts out "First Base Tim First Base Tim!"
We cleaned our room and I must say when several guys spend a weekend drinking and eating horrible food and sharing very small hotel rooms it tends to smell like shit and cigarettes. I had a seven flusher and Jacobs had a 7-packer. It was horrible smelling. Brandon packed his bag, completely upset that he still could not find the missing Busty. He blamed the maid. There was no way a maid touched our room at all.
When we finally got back to town, Brandon asked me to take a trip with him to the adult bookshop in Burlington. We went. I had no money left, so I was just walking around. I saw one guy come out of the private booth as another man was going into the booths, and they high-fived each other. Brandon suddenly appeared with a stack of movies clutched to his chest. The pile of movies was so ridiculous that two movies fell out - titled "How the Breast Was Fun" and "Wild Wild Chest." As this happened he said to me, "I have a problem."
You sure do buddy. And it is my job to preserve this memories.
Happy birthday, my friend. Thanks for being there for 21 years for me.
I think I was at that concert, but went separately, lo
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