August 30th, 2021 @ 11:14 pm
…have i ever been to a show in queens that wasn’t a local band?
: scratches head :
does black 47 on irish night at shea stadium count? oh wait, i saw the sleeping one year at flushing meadow park, but i can’t find anything via google that ever happened. i think it was some type of free vans show? i dunno. the internet tells me it never occurred, so i have no information.
WELL… i got to see rancid this weekend, and it was so nice to feel normal for a night. it was the first show i’ve been to since the pandemic happened, but it felt more like 4 damn years.
not gonna lie, singing and dancing at the same time was hard to do, lol. i was winded first song that i really started dancing (erm, in a punk pit for you non-punk show goers, it’s called skanking… if you’d like a visual, this is hysterical, and not a terrible representation at all). it’s confusing that i felt so damn out of shape and out of breath, bc i’ve been either cycling or doing aerobics on a daily basis for the last few months, with cycling being more regular for even longer… maybe it was just that when i do aerobics, i don’t use those mosh pit muscles. either way, once i started getting into it, my body just kind of kept up a little better.
the show was at forest hills stadium, which i never even knew existed. i have no idea how i didn’t know it existed, seeing as that i grew up in queens, lived in ridgewood, glendale and rego park. i’ve even walked over there a billion times and there is a freaking sign that reads “forest hills stadium” on one of the bridges in the little apartment complex/square i’m in love with, by the LIRR stop off of austin st… smh.
i’m guessing no one i really wanted to see ever played there. it was a really cool spot though, and i wish more bands would play it. when you first walk onto the property, there’s a bunch of different booths for local restaurants, lots of different things to drink, etc. and you’re on this big astroturf lawn right outside of the stadium itself. everyone was all spread out and it was nice to not be on top of each other like when you’re at a bar at a venue, in the lobby/merch areas or the floor of the venue.
as big as the area was, people we knew kept popping up out of the woodwork. i’m sure so many people were just itching to come out, too. i went to the show with kristen and missy and we ran into so many people there, from so many different eras of life. old friends, current friends, awkward people, old flames, jeff, marilyn, andrew, frank and buzz, kristen’s MIA friend brendan, a bunch of old buddies i met through greek steve… it was weird/nice to see those folks.
anyways, i didn’t care for the dropkick murphy’s setlist that i sneak peeked from setlist.fm, and missy and kristen didn’t really give a shit about them, so we skipped them. i think we’ve all seen them live, so it’s not like we missed out on them in our lifetimes entirely.
rancid was awesome as usual. i really wanted to see “red hot moon” but they didn’t play it. they also didn’t play “hooligans” or “nihilism” which would have made me very happy, le sigh. hopefully they won’t take another 4 or 5 damn years to come back.
i’m also glad i didn’t break my damn neck on a crushed can doing any dancing or circle pitting on the tennis floor surface. it seemed more grippy than i had anticipated, and it even took a few kicks to get any crushed cans out of the way that i was trying to move so that i, nor anyone else slipped and humiliated themselves. i already feel like the old weirdo at the show, lol.
***
i asked my mom if she’d ever been to FHS and her snarky little answer was “OF COURSE! i saw the cars and wang chung there, it was awesome!” and then she mentioned someone else i had no idea about… my heart yearned to see the cars, life is so unfair.