Despite all the common-sense evidence stacked against them, all-day outdoor concerts in Florida still exist — and people still attend them. The older you get, the idea of joining 20,000 people in a shadeless field on a sunny, muggy July day becomes more and more incomprehensible.
Now I'm not here to advise against attending something like the upcoming Warped Tour in St. Pete. You're gonna go if you're gonna go — and no amount of cautionary tales will stand in your way.
But as a public service, I've compiled a list of "don'ts" — gleaned mostly from firsthand knowledge — that should help make the all-day, outdoor summer concert experience a bit more bearable and less likely to land you in jail, the hospital or both.
Don't Jump in the Bay
At Warped Tour's 2004 stop at Vinoy Park, lines were stupid long — with one queue to buy a coupon, another to actually trade it in for beer/water. Pasty-faced teens decked out in black everything (see: Don't Wear Goth Gear) got so hot they resorted to jumping into the bay in droves. It wasn't a pretty scene — these kids looked like cats dropped in a pool. Especially when they mistook some dolphins swimming past for … SHARKS!
Don't Eat the Brown Acid
I've got this buddy, we'll call him "Willie," who took his girlfriend to Livestock back in '97 because she was a huge Motley Crüe fan. Well, Willie wanted to impress his sweet little drug-craving gal, so he bought some blotter acid from a longhaired stranger shortly after arriving at the show that was held way the hell up in the wasteland known as Zephyrhills. Willie and his girl put the tabs under their tongues, and the next thing they knew, they were in the car driving away from the giant flies that were trying to eat them whole. Willie and his woman ended driving until the road ended at Treasure Island, where Willie dropped $200 on a hotel room at 4 a.m. He spent the evening on the beach climbing the imaginary sand dunes that he called "the white cliffs of Dover." Willie and his gal broke up several days later when they finally came down. Moral of the story? Do I really need to spell it out?
Don't be a Blanket Nazi
Outdoor concerts with unreserved seating always solicit assholes that lay down the comforter from their king-sized bed right smack in front of the stage and then get mad when I step on it every time I go to buy a beer or take a piss — two activities that eat up a lot of my time during all-day rock concerts. Look, stake your claim away from the stage, away from the walking lanes, away from the folks who actually came to see the musicians perform — we are generally heavy drinkers and frequent pissers. Speaking of frequent pissers …
Don't Piss in Public (Before Dark)
Pissing in plain view of passersby is always an iffy proposition. Typically, I get away with it. In fact, I had gone my entire life whizzing at will behind dumpsters, trees and SUVs. At shows, I do this for altruistic reasons. Why should I occupy a port-o-potty and make a woman wait longer when my business is just as easily done on the side of a building? But a few years back, I got too brave and relieved myself at a certain local outdoor venue in downtown St. Pete before the sun went down. Busted. Thrown out by a burly bouncer in a bright yellow shirt three songs into a show I really wanted to see. I wormed my way back in, but it was a close one. So. Don't piss in public. At least not before dark. Unless you really, really — really — have to.
Don't Wear Goth Gear
First, it's not half as cool-looking as you and your friends think. Second, even it were as cool-looking as you and your friends think, donning a black T-shirt, matching cargo pants, eyeliner and combat boots is not worth the price your body will pay under the pitiless Florida sun. Yeah, yeah, I know — you're going to wear that black Killswitch Engage shirt and Doc Martens no matter what I say.
Don't Forget the T.P.
So, I'm at Jazz Fest in New Orleans a couple years back waiting for Bruce Springsteen to take the stage, and I'm surrounded by about 80,000 sweaty, muddy people, including my pal Aaron. Now, before I tell the rest of this story, I have to be fair and admit that we were on the tail end of a four-day bender that included copious amounts of booze and other stuff. Also, we had recently consumed a bowl of pheasant gumbo — which was excellent, by the way, but a tad spicy. Anyhow, we're standing there in the mud, surrounded by thousands, drinking our beers, and Aaron looks at me and goes: "Dude, I just shit myself."
While I'm laughing my ass off, this peach of a girl who looked to be about 19 walks past. And guess what's she's got in her hand? A fresh roll of toilet paper. I swear.
"Excuse me," I say to her, barely able to contain myself. "Can we borrow that? My pal here just shit himself."
Don't drink to excess/Don't feed the birds
OK, going to one of these shows sober is pretty much out of the question. But drinking 11 or 12 drafts in the 100-degree heat poses many serious problems, including, well, death. So pace yourself. Passing out is hazardous, too. Especially if the idiot kids around you at Vinoy Park are feeding the fucking seagulls, which was the case when I attended the infamous Warped Tour '04. Getting pooped on is no fun. Actually, two Tatangelos got shat on that day. The first one was my brother. The bird shit hit his arm. Soon enough, I decided I needed a little beer nap. So I'm lying there dreaming about some girl crowd-surfing topless, and what feels like a goober lands on my noggin. Splat! The kids in goth gear were still feeding the seagulls when I stood up with shit in my hair. I was definitely angry enough — and nearly drunk enough — to shove every last sunburned one of them back into the bay. Let the sharks have a feeding frenzy.
Vans Warped Tour 2007, Fri. July 20, Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg. Noon. Bad Religion, Pennywise, Killswitch Engage, Anberlin and dozens more. $28.50/$33 day of show. For more nuts-and-bolts info, go to warpedtour.com.
This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2007.