Last night was excellent. Imagine several hundred people crammed into a small and dirty punk club with concrete walls. It got so hot in there that I had to make sure that every so often I push my way through the sea of people from the front, where I had positioned myself, to the very, very back of the building, where the bathroom was, and cup some water in my hands from the sink to drink, to prevent dehydration. Then, by the time I pushed my way back to the front, I was just as hot as I was before I went to the bathroom. Someone passed out from the heat, everyone was sweating so badly that our hands were pruning, and some guy got beat real bad in the mosh pit, so by the time Reel Big Fish had finished their set, the police showed up.

First two bands were great... Against All Authority (which, I guess was ska, but was more like literal punk rock with a trumpet) opened up, and within seconds, right where me and my friends were standing, the crowd opened up, and a circle pit got started. I went with three friends... myself and two of my friends were really into it, and skanking around the pit, and my third friend who'd never been to a show like this held back at first, but by the end of the set, he had jumped in.

When the band finished, we found ourselves conversing with a very, very intoxicated individual. He was shirtless, struggling to stand, and singing enthusiastically to the house music--the Beastie Boys--like he had just lost his virginity in a mass orgy. We debated whether or not we should give him a pat on shoulder, worried he might freak out and punch someone in the face, but finally we decided, why not? This lead to an extensive conversation in which he told us about how for the last year and a half, he's just been driving around the country going to shows. He explained how his car hit E and broke down last month, and he used all of his money to "Put 20 bucks of gas in the tank and buy a quarter of weed." Then he decided to sneak into Bonnaroo.

The conversation went on and on, but he was speaking in tongues, and he decided to do so approximately three inches from my face. Finally he pronounced that he loved bull riding, and one of my friends responded, "Well, I think they have bull riding some where around here," referring to the state of New York. "Right HERE?" the drunkard asked, pointing straight to the floor. We explained that we meant somewhere in town, but he was determined. He wanted to ride bulls right there, in the vortex of the mosh pit.

Then the second band went on, Streetlight Manifesto, and the crowd immediately surged into an ugly push pit. And I realized, fuck... I'm this guys friend now. If he falls over, I have to make sure he doesn't get trampled on. So, of course he fell over, and I pulled him up before anyone stepped on him. I really hate push pits. They're no fun, I spend more time making sure I don't lose my footing and fall under the crowd then I do enjoying the music. Circle pits are excellent fun, though. Anyways, I spent about ten minutes trying to force my way out of the pit until finally, I was right on the edge. Then I realized I'd lost the three people I came with, along with several people I met up with, in the pit. So, I tried to circle my way around the pit, to the other end where we had been standing before the pit started up. No luck. So, I walked to the back, to the bathroom, where I found two people I had met up with drenched in sweat. I was sweaty and gross, and out of breath, so I watched Streetlight from the back for a while.

During their last song, I began to make my way back to the front, to find my friends. Looking around, thinking I wouldn't find them until the show ended and the crowd dispersed, I looked straight up to find an afro and a pair of checkerboard shoes being thrown up in the air, and landing on the crowd, and heading towards me. It was one of my friends. He had crowd surfed, and coincidentally, landed not to far ahead of me. I gave him a pat on a shoulder, and an exaggerated "DUDE!" but we diverted our attention to an interesting site. The music had stopped, and a shirtless, 4'10" punk rocker with a burly chest and a mohawk had just ran out of the pit. So, my friend turns to him and says, "Man, you're fucking awesome!" They exchange a few words, and my friend goes, "We need another circle pit going." So, this punked out little man puts his arm in the air, spins it around a few times, and despite the lack of music, the biggest circle pit of the entire show started up. "Dude, you're like fucking Moses!" I told him.

So, anyways, then Reel Big Fish went on. They were great. My only complaint was that everyone was so plagued by the heat, that there wasn't really much dancing or moshing going on during their set. But I can't complain, they put on a perfect show.

After they played, security was (for the first time all night) letting people exit with a garunteed re-entry. So, me and my crowd-surfing buddy headed out side to find the other two guys that came with us... Both of them shoeless. They had both lost their shoes in the push-pit that had formed during Streetlight. The first was wearing a pair of sneakers, but with no socks, and the sweat on his feet had just caused them to slip off. The second friend was in worse shape. Thinking a ska show would be chilled out, he showed up in Birkenstock's... They had slipped off, and his toenail was ripped off of his big toe in the madness. It was bleeding like crazy. Security said that to reclaim shoes, you had to come back the NEXT day. But, fuck that, I don't think anyone is going to drive an hour to reclaim their shoes.

Last on was Less Than Jake... But, they didn't really excite us, or half the crowd for that matter. The crowd was already exhausted. Imagine a concentration camp of punk rockers and hippies. Not a pretty scene. Add that to the fact that most of the people there were really turned off by the material that Less Than Jake had been putting out in the recent part of their career... There had been talk that, on request, the band was going to play a lot of their earlier, skankier stuff, but we didn't feel like sticking around to make a gamble of it. We just left then, two of us shoeless, two of us dehydrated, and one of us bleeding.

Yeah, it was a great night.