To be fair, it was quite a number of years ago: about 1998 to be exact. Hair metal was long since dead, having been soundly beaten into a coma and then had the plug pulled. Those who continued to support the genre typically sported mullets and jean jackets, worshipping at the altar of Whitesnake and bowing before Don Dokken.
Still, I had spent my formative years deep in love with hair metal and all of the cute boys found within. I had what amounted to a shrine in my bedroom, all devoted to Gunnar Nelson (because of course one twin is always hotter than the other), Nuno Bettencourt (of Extreme), and several other guys who qualified as mega-hotties in my book. I went so far as to make little frames out of plastic canvas, decorating them in neat little yarn patterns. Yeah, I was pretty far gone.
So in that year of 1998 when it was announced that the Rock Never Stops tour was, ahem, stopping in East Dubuque, I looked with glee at my co-worker Kelly. We both absolutely had to go. Firehouse, Slaughter, Warrant, and Quiet Riot. I had actually seen Slaughter live in their heyday of 1990, but the rest was new to me. Not new musically, of course; I definitely knew the complete catalogs of the first three bands. (Okay, the complete catalogs up until the point when hair metal died.) And much like me, Kelly had a major crush on one of the Slaughter guys. Her adoration was directed towards the vocalist, Mark Slaughter. I had spent years pining for the drummer, Blas Elias. In other words, yes, we both absolutely had to go.
Don’t get me wrong. We both knew exactly what we were walking into. We were not expecting to relive the late ’80s to early ’90s. After all, they were playing in East Dubuque in the back lot of a bar, for crying out loud. It’s no Madison Square Garden to say the least. We were there for nostalgia and beer. It was fun for fun’s sake.
We arrived that day after our shifts were over, partway through Firehouse’s set. We purposely arrived late to miss the shitty local opening bands, and neither of us really cared much about Firehouse anyway. We commenced the beer drinking and set about talking to strangers to convince them to buy us more beer.
It’s amazing how a lot of these hair bands still sound a lot like they did when they were big. Firehouse did, and Slaughter did. Kelly and I giggled like schoolgirls at the cute boys in the band, although as old as we were, it was all in fun. We then decided that we had to go meet Slaughter, which meant standing in line and requiring a person to purchase some of their shitty merch for signing. I grabbed a stupid glossy promo shot to keep us from getting hauled out of line.
We shook hands, we got signatures. Kelly was the type to always be running on 8 cylinders, so she insisted Mark Slaughter sign her chest. He was actually extremely personable and the most lively member of the band. Blas looked tired, Dana Strum was getting a massage from some chick (and being ever so humble, really, as he would shout one-word commands at her), and the guitarist who replaced the original guitarist who died was just kind of there. It was disappointing, sure, but what were we expecting? Kelly started to rant about them being washed up and not appreciating the few fans they have left, but by that point we were being swiftly pushed from the table and back into the crowd.
That escapade took nearly the entirety of Warrant’s set. That’s okay though, because this was the time period when Jani Lane’s decline began, so it really wasn’t worth watching.
By this time, we were getting pretty well tanked. We were evading three groups of guys who had bought us drinks who we had no intention of speaking with ever again. We ended up crunched near the front of the stage for Quiet Riot for no good reason other than we felt like actually watching one of the bands rather than drinking and bullshitting. And the band was excellent, too. They put on one hell of a show, unlike a lot of the half-assed-ness we had witnessed earlier in the evening.
But the highlight wasn’t the band so much as Kelly getting herself into trouble. The guy standing next to her had his hand down the back of her jeans, and she was having a far better time at that point than 99% of the audience. The clincher, though, was the girlfriend the guy had on his other arm. Hey, cramped crowd, how would she know? After the set ended, Kelly noticed the guy had dropped his cigarettes, so she ran over to return them. She got the look of death from the girlfriend. We were both giggling.
The only thing left to do is what everyone does in East: head to the bars and continue drinking. We left our purses with the bartender and milled around. Kelly found herself a guy to flirt with who happened to be deaf. They were kicking it on the dance floor while I was reminiscing with a guy from high school that I hadn’t seen since graduation. He had been near the top of his class, but was now barely staying buoyant as he was afloat in beer. Ahhh, the Dubuque legacy.
A few drinks and a lot of wandering later, I ran into Kelly again. She was upset that the deaf guy had shot her down. She has two kids — she was in her 30s — and he dropped her as soon as she mentioned it. This pissed her off to the point where I’m surprised she didn’t hit him. Then she got depressed, as all drunks waver in and out of emotion, because she wanted him to like her. Did I mention Kelly was married?
We sort of wound down after that. I had stopped drinking earlier (well, enough that I would be legal anyway) and drove us both home. The two of us had to work together at 6am, believe it or not. And it was no surprise to me when Kelly didn’t exactly show up on time.
In fact, it was the phone call that I got from her husband that stumped me: “Kelly can’t find her teeth.” I stopped short and my brain instantly evaporated. What? Teeth? Huh? “Can you check to see if they’re in your car?” The f*ck? How would… ohhhhhhhhhhhh, I see. I had no idea, never mind that Kelly was pretty young and one would certainly not expect her to have falsies. She apparently found them at some point and made it in, and I promised to keep her dental secret to myself. Of course, the morning shift was fantastic as Kelly spent most of her time in the manager’s office throwing up. She finally went home, concluding our misadventures with a splash.
It’s funny how we never really ever talked about the evening ever again, aside to go on and on and on about the bands that played. Firehouse was alright, Slaughter was played out but at least they played their hits, Warrant wasn’t noteworthy, Quiet Riot put on a great show. If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought we were actually paying attention to the music.
If nothing else, after that night I understood just how hair bands climbed to the top of the charts: beer. Lots and lots of beer.
Up all night, sleep all day,
–gloomchen
