Wow…where to begin on this one? For the record, this concert trip was one of my best, wildest stories to date. I will try to do it justice with the narrative.
**WARNING** – There may be mild language and drug use referenced in this post. Get over it, I had a rebellious youth.
So me and 2 buddies – Jeff, my fellow burnout (see earlier posts), and Greg a fellow Movie Gallery employee – are headed to Lakeland Civic Center, the ORIGINAL site of Dave’s concert (note the foreshadowing). We have a case of Milwaukee’s Best (warm), a bag of weed, and Jeff was doing blow (dumbass) WHILE DRIVING MY CAR down I-75 at 80 MPH, swerving around cars like a friggin’ Indy 500. It starts raining. Hard. After 5 minutes of increasingly heavy downpour, we geniuses decide it might be a good idea to buckle up…mind you, we had been driving an hour already. Another 5 go by and Jeff decides to overtake someone on the right and snatches the wheel just a little too abruptly and the next thing I know…
…we begin spinning in a nice, tight vortex right down the center of I-75. I thought we were going to vaporize or breach another dimension with the twister we created. The thought “I am about to die” flashes through my mind for the first time.
The car spins for what seems like an instant and an eternity all at the same time, migrating over to the right shoulder of the highway with each spin. Eventually we hit the grassy shoulder and I can tell and I remember thinking, “oh boy, we will probably come to a nice stop in the grass now…whew”. Then we were airborne. The thought “I am about to die” flashes through my mind for the second time.
When the car flipped up in the air twice, landed on its roof and several windows burst out, we unhung ourselves from our seatbelts and climbed out the back window to be immediately greeted by two truckers who had stopped to assist. No one had a scratch. Everyone immediately began tossing all illegal substances over into the neighboring cow pasture before the FHP showed up.
Now for anyone else, this would be the end. Nay, nay. Not for me…and not for stoner Jeff.
So the cops take us to the very next exit and leave us to our own devices, none the wiser about the toxins contributing to their workload and the taxpayer’s burden. We found ourselves in a Stuckey’s diner…planning how to get home safely? Nay, nay. We were planning our push forward, on to the concert, car crash be damned. What the hell..the car was totaled already, right? We owe it to ourselves to make it the rest of the way to see Dave, right?
So we find these two older gals seated together in the diner, one in her late 40s and her mother who was in her 60s. We begin begging and pleading, doing our best to convince these women to taxi three 18-20 year old men 20 miles down the interstate, to the nearest Car Rental shop. Much to my surprise, these two obviously insane women agreed to take us. We could have been serial-rapist-murderer-cannibals for all they knew.
Now we are in their car, the three of us in the back seat and the two of them in the front when the daughter, who was driving, sounded off with “Do you boys smoke?” to which I giddily replied “That depends on what you are smoking” to which she replies by brandishing a large, cleanly rolled doober. Yeah, we got high with the old ladies on the way to the rental car.
Flash forward another 45 minutes…the ladies dropped us off baked like pies and we secured a car, then headed back out to see Dave. A little bit MORE driving stupid and we get to the Civic Center JUST IN TIME FOR THE SHOW!! I can’t believe we actually are there and about to park after everything we went through. We circle the Civic Center looking for a place to park when we happen to notice the place is flooded with…senior citizens…by the droves.
This can not be. Why are all these old people here to see Dave? My brain froze up for a second before it hit me – The show had been canceled.
<insert every foul word you ever heard – for the sake of my kids and my mom, I will spare you>
So…we went and got three pizzas, another case of Milwaukee’s best (yes, warm) and drove back home. David Lee Roth made up the date later in Jacksonville, with Poison opening. Bastard.
Oh yeah, he rode out over the crowd on a giant surfboard with a roll bar. Whoopiddy-dooo! I still had to wreck my car and drive TWICE to see it. I ain’t impressed.
