Man, you ain’t kidding. A stadium (or whatever) full of drunk rednecks is magnitudes more dangerous than a bunch of punk rockers packed together in a pit.
Or at least, that used to be the case. I haven’t been to a raging punk show in a while.
I remember seeing Bad Brains one time and being in the thick of the pit. Now, to the uninitiated, I’m sure it appeared to be a seething cauldron of violence and anarchy. However, if somebody fell, eveyone around would fucking stop and help them up. This has been the case at almost every punk show I ever attended. Hell, at one Sickofitall show, I remember seeing a bunch of Nazi skinheads trying to invade the show. The music stopped, and as one, the crowd, not security, turned on them and peacefully removed them.
Not so at the most recent Willie Nelson show my girlfriend and I attended. We were standing in the front of the crowd, and there was a drunk couple standing in front of us. My girlfriend is vertically challenged, and couldn’t see jack on the stage, but if she could get just an inch or two to Drunk Boy’s left, she’d be able to see just fine. We couldn’t move to the left, but Drunk Boy and Drunk Girl had a good foot they could move to the right. So I reached up and tapped Drunk Boy on the shoulder, prepared to politely ask him if he could move just a smidge to the right.
“NO! NO NO! FUCK YOU! I’M NOT FUCKING MOVING! YOU WANNA MAKE SOMETHING OF IT? YOU WANNA FUCKING FIGHT ABOUT IT? FUCK YOU!”
Nice vocabulary, Hoss.
I was so angry. I looked at his girlfriend, hoping to get her to appeal to his sensibilities. She regarded me in the same way people usually reserve for cat feces on a bedspread. Then she turned her back on me.
I nearly failed in self control. I know it sounds (and felt at the time) like cowardice, but I clenched my fists and sweated it out. I did not punch the guy in the back of the head like I wanted to. I did not climb all over him and make him cry like a baby. Oh, I suppose I took the moral high ground, but what a bitter victory!
To this day, I see red when I think about it, and my girlfriend won’t even talk about it.
A woman came up to me after the show and told me that she appreciated that I didn’t go after the guy, because she and her son were sitting nearby, and he was recovering from brain surgery. :eek: I never would have been able to live with myself had I badly hurt some innocent bystander just because I had a moment of poor self control.
Sorry for the ramble, Ender. I sympathize with you, though. The only thing you can do is let it go. You handled the situation with a cool head, and frankly, with that sort of resourcefulness, it sounds like you didn’t need anyone to back you up, even though it would have been nice.
Live well, brother. That’s the best revenge.