It'll Never Die

I have a theory that once rock stars reach a certain age, they can't be killed.

Consider Keith Richards survived decades of drug use without killing himself, and now that he's in his, I don't know, 90s or something, he can fall out of a coconut tree, undergo brain surgery, and return to the stage to perform only months later.

Billy Joel wraps his car around a tree on a weekly basis, and walks away with enough lucidity to console Christy Brinkley for losing husband number 4 to a high school girl.

I'm pretty sure Ozzy Osbourne's brain is made up of pills, dust, and portions of one of those weird British meat pies. The man can't even say his own name legibly, but he can drive his ATV off a cliff and appear on the Oprah show later the same day. I guarantee you, if you hit him with a city bus, he'd hop up unscathed and do Bark at the Moon for an encore.

Tom Petty, another habitual car crasher, sees UFOs over Adam Sandlers house, nearly kills three people in a terrible wreck, and shortly thereafter starts yet another summer tour in his more-than-30-year career with the Heartbreakers.

And Chuck Berry is in his 80s, and can still videotape himself urinating on a young girl in a bathtub better than R. Kelly ever dreamed of doing, before demanding cash upfront for a 30-minute set down at the VFW hall. Okay, so that doesn't really attest to old Chucky overcoming any physical duress, unless the girl's father somehow gets a copy of the videotape. I suppose I just have a thing for mentioning the perverse.

But you get the idea.

Rock stars either die young or they live forever. They're like cockroaches. Only two things on this planet can survive a nuclear holocaust: cockroaches and old rock stars. Once they reach a certain age, you just can't kill these people.

Apparently the same holds true for rock and roll. Not the music so much --- though I think so many of the popular anthemic tunes have it exactly right when they express the "Rock and roll will never die" sentiment. I'm talking about the rock and roll vibe. The rock and roll lifestyle. The rock and attitude. The rock and roll way. It just won't die.

A buddy of mine and I were at the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show last week, and we had decent seats, but they weren't great seats. My buddy's dad, a big music fan in his own right, was also at the show, and he did have great seats. The dad was sitting in the front row with his girlfriend.

Well, the lights went down, the band took the stage, and the opening riff for Listen to Her Heart washed over the crowd.

Before the first verse was finished, my buddy's dad appeared at our seats, and he had two things in his hand; a fresh beer and his girlfriend's ticket. This is a man in his mid to late 50s who'd made it from the front row to the beer stand and found us in our seats in the span of about 30 seconds, give or take an exaggeration.

Now, being seasoned concert goers, we knew the drill. My buddy grabbed the beer and the ticket, and they split for the front row, leaving me behind.

My buddy is a little less experienced than his dad, so the first song was almost over before he showed up back at our seats with a fresh beer and his dad's ticket for me. No big deal. I like the song, and as I said before our seats weren't bad. Nevertheless, before the second song began, all four of us were on the front row with only two front row tickets.

You experienced concert-goers will recognize the ease at which this scheme is carried off; especially as long as the band doesn't play a slow song. Everyone is standing, and the ushers and security people have no way of knowing who should be in which seat or how many people the row actually holds. If the band plays a slow song, however, folks tend to sit down, and if you don't actually have a seat in that row, you're left standing and vulnerable to the searing, roaming eyes of the ushers.

So what to do when the band plays a slow song?

Two words: Beer stand

The moment the slow song started, mine and my buddy's eyes met. We exchanged the following quick, non-verbal communication:

"It's a slow song," his eyes said.
"I know," mine answered.
"Beer stand?" his asked.
"Yes --- and maybe restroom, too," mine replied.
"Yeah, don't want to get back until everyone is standing again."
"No shit. Remember when that happened at Springsteen?"
"Of course, we spent the rest of the show in the nosebleed section."
"Sucked didn't it?"
"Sure did."
"Hey, what about that girl in the row behind us?"
"She's pretty hot."
"Yeah, you think that's her dude she's with?"
"Could be her brother. Maybe her gay friend."
"Let's 'accidentally' buy an extra beer, and give it to her to break the ice."
"Nice."

It's amazing how much one can say with just one's eyes.

So we bolted to the beer stand, and returned as the crowd was rising once more to its feet.

Upon returning, I noticed something that you only see at rock shows. The man next to us had removed his shirt and was waving it around above his head. I mean, I've never seen this particular maneuver done at a symphony, or at a comedy club, or even at a wrestling match, but there he was in all his bare-chested, beer-bellied glory, and his accompanying choruses of "Whoooooo!!! Yeeeaaah!!!" were quite infectious. But I couldn't help but wonder what his daughter, who I gauged to be about 9 or 10, thought about her old man as she stood next to him with his T-shirt whirling above her head.

I was amazed to discover that she probably had no problem with her dad's antics.

After a few more songs, I looked and Shirtless Guy was taking one of those drunken power naps in his seat. You know, one of those quick recharge, pass out things? It looked like he was trying to touch his nose to his left nipple.

I immediately thought it was a shame the poor little girl had to see her father like that. But when I looked at her, it was obvious that she didn't care. She was up on the rail, not paying a lick of attention to her father, and singing every word to the song Last Dance with Mary Jane. And in a better voice than her old man's whoops and hollers I might add.

I wondered if she was familiar with the strange odor that emanated from the crowd during that song, but when I checked the condition of Shirtless Guy again, I figured she probably at least had a passing familiarity with it.

Shortly after that episode, the tiny red, glowing embers that had been interspersed through the crowd faded, as did the pungent, earthy odor, and Stevie Nicks joined the band onstage to do a few songs with Tom and the boys.

Stevie was all lacy and twirly, just like she has been since the old Fleetwood Mac days, although sexy has been mostly removed from her twirliness by the years and apparently either a lot of Twinkies or the cessation of amphetamine use, but she’s still quite a big presence onstage.

It was during Stop Dragging My Heart Around that I noticed a young boy had sidled up next to me. He had a nervous, twitchy look about him, and I asked him what was up.

He said it was his first concert and he had sneaked up to the front --- from the lawn seats!

This kid, who I estimated to be about 11, maybe 12 at the outside, had made his way from the lawn (this was an outdoor venue) all the way to the front row without using the ticket switch trick that my buddy and I had used. At his very first rock show!

I was immediately impressed, thinking he must be some sort of natural concert ninja or something. His stealth was amazing. I mean, I didn't even see him at all until he was standing right next to me. I don't think I'd have had the guts or the talent to pull that off myself when I was his age. Especially not at my first concert.

Unfortunately, he got a little too ambitious, and tried for a side door that led backstage. He almost made it when the security guard was distracted by some older groupie types, but alas, the little ninja was nabbed and escorted back up to the lawn, where his parents were no doubt in the midst of a drunken, power nap of their own.

Anyway, after one more slow song scare and trip to the beer stand, the show was finally winding down. At that point, something else happened that you don't see too many other places. The band finished a song, and left the stage, and 12,000 people stood in the dark, applauding and cheering an empty stage.

Not just for a few seconds either. We applauded and cheered at a dark, empty stage for several minutes!

I always picture the band backstage at this point in the show making fun of the crowd. But then they usually always come back out and do a few more songs.

And this show was no exception.

Tom and the guys played a few more tunes, and Stevie Nicks sang and danced her little twirly gypsy dance, and soon the show was over. There was nothing to do at this point but stop in the lounge, have a beer while all the traffic cleared, and recount our favorite moments of the show by screaming at each other. Hey, standing in front of a stack of amps for two and a half hours tends to make you say "Huh?!" and "What?!" a lot.

But the point of all this is, the small things you see at rock and roll shows seem to not only endure, but to transcend ages and generations. They seem to be entrenched in our collective psyche somehow, and I would wager that if, god forbid, rock and roll ever did die, we'd find some other medium in which to behave like we do at rock shows.

You just can't kill rock and roll.