Disturbing December

It's always healthy to take a break from routine. Days in, and days out in medical school, the repetitive nature of my lifestyle began to grate on me. It seemed that my much-needed respite lay far off on December 22nd... the Holiday Vacation, was woefully out of reach. No fun for poor old Tom. Fortunately, my good buddy Johnny G came to my rescue. It all started with a series of e-mails...

John: Hey Tom, I have an extra ticket to see Disturbed on December 13th. You wanna go?
Me: Gee... money's awfully tight.
John: I'm offering the ticket for free. Take it, scumbag.
Me: Golly Gawillickers... I have a final the following week, I should probably be responsible.
John: Okay... dork.

(Days Pass)
I send out a group e-mail, describing some of the Christmas movies I'm excited about.

Me: Hey guys, anyone interested in seeing King Kong? It's coming out on December 14th!
John: So you can see a movie on the 14th, but you can't see a free concert on the 13th? What's up with that?
Me: Shucks and Snazzleberries! You're right! Sign me up!

And so it goes...

Charter Members of the Tom Selleck Fan Club: Me and Johnny

John had a office holiday party to go to beforehand, so I met up with him at his office in Manhattan (3 blocks away from Midtown Comics... Lucky!), he passed off my ticket, and we agreed to meet later on at the Nokia Theater around 7:30-ish. I killed some time at the aforementioned Midtown Comics and then grabbed a quick bite at the nearby Mickey D's. All was fine until a panhandler confronted me and asked me to buy him a soda. (I figured something was up, because he sat down at the table across from me and started looking furtively all around to make sure no employees or anything saw him... needless to say, I was a bit nervous) So he finally makes his move... and...

"Sorry, buddy." says I, the cold, unfeeling bastard that I am.
"Comon' brother." cajoles the scary homeless man.

At this point, I stalk out of the restaurant, and up towards Times Square. For some reason, (maybe because the hobo was looking all suspicious) I had this dreadful premonition that he was going to follow me and shiv me out on the busy street. Sure there'd be plenty of witnesses, and he'd never get away... but his advantage would be that he's crazy, and thus, doesn't care..

So I ducked into a souvenir shop and stared at Giants jerseys for a little while, chatting with Ally on my cell (those dang things are starting to come in handy, I must say!)

Anyway, digressions involving scary men aside, I eventually met up with John and went into the concert. We checked our stuff and I offered to buy John a drink at the bar (it was the least I could do). I bought a Captain Morgan's straight up, and a Heineken. The damage? Fourteen bucks. Well, that cut into my Christmas shopping money, just a tad. Yeah, obviously, I'm not used to buying drinks in Manhattan. I was a bit surprised.

We both bought t-shirts, and then headed into the theater. Apparently, the Nokia theater has four sections: the general admission ground floor; firmly demarcated by a rail is the first balcony, standing room only; a back, seated area (a source of nonstop consternation for both David Draiman and Lizard Guy... some people stubbornly insisted on sitting throughout the concert.... FOR SHAME!); and an upper tier above both sides of the general admission ground floor (they had some sweet posters hanging from them... but unfortunately, these sections were inadmissible to us members of the unwashed rabble.)

The opening act was "Dope." They were okay. Personally, my favorite part was when they did their cover of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" Other than that, I couldn't quite get over their whole look... which is supposed to be all nu-metal, but is already starting to look a bit dated. The closest approximation for these guys are the "Hardy Boyz," of WWE.

Seriously, Mom... I don't know what happened to your stockings!

In between band sets, the aforementioned Lizard Man would come out and serve as a distraction for the crowd. I have to hand it to whoever ran this concert. The intermissions between sets were pretty short. In the past, I've experienced waits up to and beyond an hour for a band to come onstage. Lizard Man would cavort around, putting things through his nose, getting darts thrown at him, blowing up condoms, lifting heavy objects up with his earlobes, and making dirty jokes... it passed the time. At one point his partner came out and lifted two bottles of Jagermeister with hooks lodged in his eye sockets... (yeah, it's as gross as it sounds)

I can't wait to see what he looks like in 40 years... if lizards live that long...

Another interesting character was a guy in the mosh pit who was a spitting image of another associate of ours. John and I dubbed him "Metal Grandone." He had his shirt off and was bouncing around the circle, smacking into frustrated former-high school football players and the other sort of general wifebeater-clad cretins that usually participate in mosh pits.

Mike Grandone: Jamaica Me Crazy, Mon! Irie!

Sandwiched between Dope and Disturbed was Corrosion of Conformity. And to quote the late, and infinitely great, Mitch Hedberg, "They were heavy, boy!" Seeing them live after all these years made me regret not taking them too seriously back when they were the opening act for Metallica (I'm thinking it was the Load Tour, back in'97... correct me if I'm wrong). As I write this, I'm bidding on one of their albums on eBay. They were that freakin' good. Lead singer/rhythm guitarist Pepper Keenan strode out onto stage looking like James Hetfield, circa 1991. They put on a truly awesome set...

A band can always be judged by the quality of their logo: Corrosion of Conformity, thus, is very, very awesome.

Every song had a solid, heavy riff, Pepper's vocals were thunderous, and the percussion was on-point. These guys rocked. No doubt about it.

Pepper Keenan... Melting my face

One strange thing was, their other guitarist bore a striking resemblance to Ron Jeremy. To what extent he resembles the Ron, I cannot say. Only the groupies know for sure...

My solos are long and heavy... just the way you like it...

Finally, after making it through Lizard Man hijinx, Crazy Town rejects, and mighty COC with the three-legged guitarist... Disturbed took the stage...

In medical school today, I learned that David Draiman is exhibiting Alopecia Totalis... but more importantly, he's already got a terminal case of Kickass Totalis. Prepare to be rocked.

This was the second time I've seen Disturbed play live, and they did not disappoint. In my humble opinion, Disturbed is arguably the best new heavy metal band of the new millenium so far. And David Draiman is truly the last rock god, in the classic sense. He struts around stage like he owns it. He commands the audience because he owns it. And seriously, the man has pipes. My throat was shot after about the third song. I kept singing, naturally... but I doubt I produced anything more eloquent than a hoarse gurgle. How he does it, night after night... is simply mystifying. (He later revealed that he had to give up drinking to keep up with the demands of the tour... sorry to hear that, Dave) In between a couple of songs, he provided a little banter... at one time exhorting the seated people in the back to get the eff up, another time to lambast "all those bands that start with, 'The'."

It was a truly epic small-venue show, and I had an awesome time. Big thanks to my man, Johnny G, for taking pity on a beleaugered med student. Next drinks are on me, buddy!

Feedback Question of the Day:
"Share your favorite small-venue music show story... or, what concerts are you looking forward to this upcoming year?"