Improving Your Concert Going Experience

There's news today that an off duty police officer was arrested for peeing on a fellow attendee during a Metallica concert in (wait for it)...Boston several days ago. The man was caught by security guards and resisted when asked to leave, flashing his badge and calling one of the guards (who happened to be black) "Obama".

Apparently the young buck with a badge was inebriated and unwilling to huff it out to the port-o-john during "Sad But True" and whipped out his watering stick to shower the black denim of a nearby ticket holder.

Sad times indeed. The only time I've ever been peed on(without being blindfolded and asking nicely-just kidding) was by a cataracted rat dog in my old neighborhood who thought my brown levi cords was a tree. A story like this makes me think of a bit I did some time ago on the podcast that my friend Jefe and I used to cohost. We came up with a list of Douchebags who ruin concerts and I will now share that list with you.

1) The Free Pass Golf Shirt Guy- This ignoramus shows up to a concert of a performer he knows nothing about just because the tickets were free. He is usually accompanied by a bro from middle management and they spend the entire night bragging loudly back and forth about subjects ranging from golf swings to corporate stings to nipple rings while checking texts and craning necks....doing everything except watching the show. These guys don't get the stun setting in my Sci Fi dream...they get vaporized...and my view is cleared.

2) The Fanboy Heckler- This is the asshole who shouts out requests after every song nuch to the chagrin of those within whiff of his Budweiser breath. He/she is hopelessly trying to connect with his/her idol, hollering, hooting and sonically polluting your concert going airspace. I've seen geniuses who try to get the attention of jumbo video screens from the 110th row. I've seen God when they are reprimanded from the stage by their very own heroes.

3)The Crowd Cruiser- If you're crushed into a 3 x 3 standing room only space waiting for the headliner to show up on stage in a minute or two, the Crowd Cruiser will slink by, squirm around and shuffle through a queue of your very own friends to steal your space while "stealing your face". This guy always seems to be looking for that elusive cohort in a thousand deep sea of people. He can often be seen pulling a puffy eyed over tanned girlfriend by the hand and working a cell phone with the other..Sample conversation: "Yo, where are you? Over by the right of the stage..look for the cowboy hat and we're on a brown blanket. Ok dude, be right there."

4) The Picnic Go-ers- These landlubbers plant their asses on the largest blanket this side of the Aids memorial quilt several hours before the show and just vegetate. Bowls will be passed, skin will be burned, flasks will be emptied and friends will bring more blankets to tag team onto theirs. Meanwhile, time is passing and these revelers have forgotten about the show in favor of contacting the nearist contact high.

5)The Monsters In The Middle- This is a group of insanely tall individuals who post hole their six foot plus stretch of head and shoulders smack dab in the center of the crowd. This hulking mass of men usually stand tall with their arms folded in disdain, looking like and moving as much as Easter Island statues and killing your joy, while critiquing in sullen silence.

6) The Show Your Tits Girl- This floozy uses her ample rack and tall beau to her advantage and your distraction. She gets the best seat in the house seated on her defensive end of a boyfriend's shoulders and fools the crowd around her into letting her stay perched there by flashing the floppy goods every now and then. She's smarter than you as hundreds of drunk revelers and a few band members get her attention, sure to be captured on the jumbotron...and sure to ruin the flow of the show.

Those are a few of my favorite things...and those are a few reasons I pay for good seats these days..after shelling out for a sitter, dinner and merch for the wife....In other words..those are a few reasons I stay home.

If you can think of your own concert crushing culprits...send them my way. And if you're on your way to a show...invest in a Whizzernator or keep an empty plastic bottle handy. That way when nature calls you can fill that bottle and chuck it at The Monster In The Middle. Don't end up like Officer Bean Town.