letters to no one

Mosh

It only took us about 20 minutes to get inside to where the show was taking place. As we walked through the gate we ran into one of the girls who worked at the local strip club. She knew Steve from school and had come to hang out with us a few times. When she saw us, she came over to say hello to everyone. I noticed Michaela kind of hung back. After the girl left, Michaela started arguing with Joel. Apparently, the girl had tried to get Joel to sleep with her a few times before, and Michaela didn't like her talking to him. They were having a pretty serious argument about it.

Finally, Joel just stepped away from her, giving the excuse that he had to use the bathroom. I asked Michaela what was wrong and she explained the situation. I asked Michaela two questions: 1. Did he ever actually take her up on the offer and sleep with her? And 2. Was she really going to let one person ruin their entire day? She finally realized that she was overreacting, and by the time Joel got out of the bathroom, she had calmed down.

After that, Steve decided he could use a drink, so we went to find a beer tent. They had a line to check I.D.'s before you got to the beer tent. They were giving armbands to the people who were old enough to buy beer. Joel and Aaron had left their I.D.'s in the car. Amateurs.

Josh and I weren't planning on drinking, so the four of us walked over to the bleachers where we took off our wristbands and put them on Aaron and Joel.

While the guys were in line to get beer, I saw what had upset Michaela so much. It probably wouldn’t have bothered Michaela so much to see Raquel hug Joel if Raquel had a shirt on. She was walking around wearing nothing but underwear and body paint. I wouldn’t have wanted her to hug Josh either. I found myself secretly hoping she would get the worst sunburn of her life.

As we walked around the fairgrounds, I noticed that there were a lot of girls in body paint. Michaela and I talked about how we were going to have to lose weight so that next year we could get painted too. She seemed to have pretty,much calmed down at that point, and our group decided to split up. There were three stages at the rock show, each one showcasing different bands at different times. Steve, Dylan, Josh, Rory, and I went to the side stage to see Hurt, while Matt and Aaron went to the acoustic stage to see Taproot. Joel and Michaela went to sit in the bleachers by the main stage to see theUsed. While we waited for Hurt to play, I realized I was going to be in for a fun night. Steve decided to open up his own little mosh pit during a set by Stellar Revival.

After Hurt had finished playing, everyone met up back at the side stage to watch Soil, and Matt and Dylan joined Josh and Steve in the mosh. While everyone was together, Aaron suggested that we all chip in and get a shirt for Kenny since he couldn’t be there with us. We all agreed to chip in $5 to get him a GodSmack shirt. We all went over to the T-shirt trailer to get Kenny’s shirt, and most of us picked out shirts for ourselves. We ran into a few more friends from the bar while we were there and then the group split up again.

For most of the night the group tended to split up and regroup into several different combinations. One thing I noticed, though, was that Joel always seemed to go where I went, even if Michaela didn’t. We had all decided to meet at the main stage for the last two bands: First Staind, then GodSmack. So at about 8:00, the entire group reformed around the bleachers. Aaron and Michaela opted to watch the show from the bleachers, while the rest of us decided to brave the crowd to get close to the stage.

The set from Staind was pretty mellow, and we took advantage of that time to get as close to the stage as we could. By the time GodSmack came on, we were right in the middle of the crowd center stage, only a few rows back from the stage itself. Once GodSmack got into their second song, pandemonium had struck. Of course Matt, Steve and Joel had been looking for an excuse to start moshing, so Matt just shoved Dylan into Steve. Josh ducked back behind Rory and me to get away from the action. We weren’t going to let that slide. Rory grabbed Josh and tossed him, and Joel took full advantage of the opportunity to throw him face-first into the dirt.

After that all hell broke loose, I swear entire wars have been fought with less ferocity than a mosh pit at a rock concert. One of the guys behind me decided that since he couldn’t get to the mosh in front of me, that he was just going to create his own. He grabbed me and slung me right into some other guy’s elbow. That pissed me off, it hurts to ram nose first into an elbow. I hopped around in the mosh for a bit, and as soon as I saw him l, I knocked him down as payback. For the rest of GodSmack’s set, Rory and I stood on the edge of the mosh pit, just throwing the guys back in as they got tossed out. We got dropped, hit, and stepped on more times than I could count, but it was definitely a lot of fun.

When the show was over, we decided to survey the damage before going to find Aaron and Michaela. All of the guys were covered in mud and bruises. Steve had split his eyebrow. Matt had a busted lip. Dylan had a nosebleed. The one who looked the worst by far was Joel. He didn’t have a scratch on him, but he was covered in blood, and his shirt had been ripped almost completely off. He was streaked with mud, literally from head to toe. He looked like he had done a number on somebody. Josh, of course, looked as though no one had touched him. The guys went to the medic tent to get Steve’s eye looked at, while Rory and I went to find Aaron and Michaela in the bleachers. It only took us a minute to find them, and by that time the security guards were telling everyone to make their way toward the parking lot. Aaron, Rory, and Michaela went down the stairs toward the gate, but I decided to wait for the guys to get back from the the time they made it to the bleachers, the stairs had been roped off. I sat on the wall of the bleachers and got ready to jump down. Before I could jump, Joel had already scooped me up in his arms and was setting me on the ground. I never did get over how terrifying it was for him to pick me up, because it always seemed like I didn’t weigh anything. It was almost as if he could toss me in the air if the mood struck him. Instead, he just put me down, and we headed for the cars.