Your Worst Concert Experience: Urine Trouble & The Trench Coat Vigilante

First off, a big thanks to everyone for sending in your worst concert stories and keeping the franchise afloat. We’ve got some in the bank now, but we definitely need more. So send yours in! Do it! The email address is [email protected]. It can be your story, or somebody else’s, and if you want, it can be anonymous. Long or short—you decide. Misery is the only requirement.

This week, we’ve got another four-pack of stories for your amusement. Let’s start at Bonnaroo, with the famous ocean-themed band Phish:

Garrett:

My worst concert experience came during one of the best concerts experience I’ve had. I saw Phish at Bonnaroo in 2009 on their comeback tour. I waited all day in line to get into the pit for the closing show of the festival. Lots of pushing and shoving and trampling when they let people in before the show, but somehow I managed to get a spot on the railing. Obviously packed with drugged out and drunk guys screaming “Trrrreeeeyyyy!” but that is all part of the fun right?

The fun stopped a couple minutes before the end of the first set. I was dancing and felt some water start running down my leg. Confused I looked around me and behind me was a middle-aged drunk guy smirking drinking from a water bottle. “Of course, he’s just drinking water and some spilled on me” I thought and turned back around. At the intermission a security guard tapped me on the shoulder and told me he thought the guy behind me had been peeing on me but he couldn’t be sure. If anything else came up he said, he would kick the guy out. Nothing happened the second set though I contemplated lying about something just to get the guy. At the end of the show I reached down to grab my backpack and sure enough it was drenched in urine. Not only did I get peed on and all my stuff get peed on…….but I let him get away with it.

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Jeff:

Let me premise this by saying as a very tall individual, I understand there are special rules when you’re tall and at a concert. Namely, if you’re going to ruin someone’s view of the stage, you do not budge your way up through the crowd.

This event happened a few years back when The Flaming Lips came to Columbia, Mo. The concert was outside, so they blocked off a city block and they set up the stage in the middle of the street; this was all just a few days before the official beginning of fall, and there was a sort of electricity in the air as if this was everyone’s last summer hurrah. I was with two of my buds and we had gotten there early and secured a good spot up close to the front and just off from center stage, which we held through the opener. About five minutes before The Flaming Lips went on stage, this behemoth of a man, (definitely a good seven feet tall and at least 250lbs) budged passed us and stood right in front of my friend. Now, my friend, you must know, is maybe five feet tall. But she wasn’t going to stand for it.

She tapped the guy on the back and said, politely but firmly, “Hey, what gives, man? We’ve been standing here for hours and nobody can see from behind you.”

The hulker shrugged and told us to suck it up. All three of us and everyone around didn’t know what to do. This definitely wasn’t fair, but Paul Bunion was bulging with what could’ve been muscle. Luckily, there was one hero who saved the day. A stout man in a black leather trench coat and a black hat started telling Paul Bunion off! It blew my mind because our savior was pudgy and short, shorter than my friend, even. And the best part is that this hero’s vision wasn’t even obstructed by Bunion! But he just ripped this giant of a man a new one, yelling at him with all the pent up rage that comes from years of bullying. Bunion was clearly confused and frightened of the pint-sized defender. Eventually, our hero got everyone in the area around us to start booing Paul Bunion until the giant sulked off to the sidewalk.

Me and my buds all tried to thank our greasy haired hero, but he brushed off all complements with a nonchalant, “You can’t let bad behavior slide, otherwise he’ll do it at every concert.”

At every concert, when a giant shoves their way to the front right before the show, I always think, “What would the weird little hero in the trench coat do?”

Chloe:

This came during my teenage metal phase, back in 2004. One of my first (and few) metal shows had Kittie as the headliner, Otep up second, and about four other openers, none of which I remember. I came to the show with a friend of mine, a fellow metal-enthusiast, both of us female. We were both super jazzed to be there (is jazzed an appropriate word for a metal show?) and neither of us were weary of being near the super-aggressive mosh pit—we could hold our own. Now, most mosh pits are fairly aggressive, but this one was bad enough that the singer of the first opening band told the pit to be more cautious, especially since us women-folk were looming close by.

Not long after the band told the pit to chill a bit, I was suddenly cold-cocked on the right side of my face. First band of the evening, I was punched so hard in the face that it actually hurt on the opposite cheek, most likely resulting from my jaw being dislodged momentarily (I’m not a doctor, but that’s my best guess). I was also so dazed by the event that I was unable to identify who punched me. No retaliation. I toughed it out for the entire concert and even had a great time despite it all, though my face and head ached for the remainder of the evening.
See you next week…IF, that is, you send in your story to [email protected] and keep the good (bad) times rolling.

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The Phantom Grabber
The Handhold Switcheroo
The Accidental Threesome
The Elusive Sasquatch