Waff

Hello, Pit Monkeys!

            On December 2^nd, I saw Lamb of God, Metallica, and The Sword. I took a friend of mine along whom I haven’t spoken to in about half a year. We met up downtown and took the bus to the ferry. On the bus we ran into two guys with Metallica shirts and talked a bit. When we got to the ferry terminal it turns out our ferry was cancelled and we had to wait 3 hours for the next one. We met up with my friends co-worker and he had a laptop with him. We plugged it in from the outside of the terminal and played music, chillin’ out. A girl had a banjo with her and I played metal on it… It sounded like two cats having anal sex without any lube.

            I met a lot of fans on the way there. On the ferry we were skeptical about getting bus tickets or making it to the show on time. We hung out on the deck of the ferry and talked to people with metallica/LOG shirts, the whole ferry, at least 90%, had band related shirts on. It was a great feeling to see so many congregated together. We got to Vancouver from the bus and I saw a guy with a Lamb of God Congregation t-shirt (the fan club). I thought I would be the only one wearing one. I walked up to him and said “THE CONGREGATION IS HEEREE!” and he laughed and we talked for a bit. I asked him for his number to jam sometime and he sounded pretty stoked.

            My dad met up with us to pick up our stuff. He gave us each another 40 bucks and we headed to the GM place with the Skytrain. When we got there I picked up my tickets and we went up the stairs to get checked by the security guards. What amazed me was it would be so easy to sneak in a weapon to a show… I mean they just touch pat your pockets, you could easily put a weapon in your underpants or something… If anything they should have METAL DETECTORS… Anyways, so we enter the stadium and walk around. I buy a Lamb of God Tour shirt and put it under my congregation shirt. We go down to the floor and The Sword starts playing.

            Now don’t get me wrong here, these guys were good, but I was expecting so much more. The whole time I was thinking to myself “These guys are touring with LAMB OF GOD and METALLICA? Really?!”. I guess I had really high expectations, but I didn’t hear any cool solos, and the songs were mostly instrumental with some generic power-chords. Good band, but not great. Don’t flame me either because it’s an opinion.

            When The Sword were done I made sure I was standing near where Mark would be. I was incredibly stoked to see my biggest metal influence walk onto the stage. The whole stadium went black and all I heard was Hourglass start playing. I started freaking out! Randy grew out his hair and it was a huge surprise. I knew every lyric, drumbeat, and riff, etc. I know their music incredibly well. After Hourglass they played Ruin. What amazed me was EVERYONE was singing, I did not expect that at all.

What pissed me off was I have realized why people hate going to shows where Metallica is playing. Most of the people there didn’t even look like they liked metal, there was chavs, preps, and skanky looking chicks. During Ruin, right when Chris did the fill before the breakdown I looked at my friend and he looked at me and we were about to start a pit. Right away we went at it and people were like “WOAH BREAK IT UP KIDS!” and started flipping shit. We ignored them and had a 2 person mosh pit…

NEWSFLASH: IT’S A FUCKING METAL SHOW!

            Randy started doing his usual speech after two songs and did the usual “We are Lamb of God from Richmond Mother-fucking Virginia! There’s a lot of people behind the scenes here, most people don’t get to see them, they drive the buses, set up our gear, that’s the ROAD CREW, GIVE IT UP FOR THE FUCKING ROAD CREW! Because every day, they WALK, WITH ME, IN HELL!” *Queue orgasmic riff. During the breakdown of the song I started crying and watching Mark play that solo right infront of me was by far, by far, the most mesmerizing, inspirational thing I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life.

            They played Omerta next and Randy went to the other end of the stadium (stage in the center) and initiated a circle pit. My friend and I ran over there and it was kind of nauseating as my head was hurting a lot from headbanging and it wouldn’t stay still so I was kinda dizzy but I kept running anyway. I had a blast. Eventually Randy said “This next song is BLACK LABEL” and I was like “They can’t be done already…”.

            During the start of the song there was some dumb asses that were already moshing, you could tell who the fans were and who the morons were. I was in perfect sync with randy and did a countdown tih my fingers, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR! And we all ran in. The mosh pit was fun as shit, I didn’t get hurt at all! When the song was done I walked up the stairs repeatedly saying “holy shit….holy shit…holy shit…holy shit..” You get the idea. Near the top of the stairs these guys gave me the horns and were like “YEAAH LAMB OF GOD” and I talked to them for a few minutes and one of the guys said he already talked to chris adler and he said they were coming back in March for their own tour.

            When Metallica were about to start their set, we randomly decided to go for a walk around the stadium. As we’re walking I see a man with grey hair by a garbage can. I said “That guy looks a lot like John Campbell…Naw it couldn’t be him”. Kept walking by the man, and then I said outloud “HOLY FUCK IT’S JOHN CAMPBELL!” I threw my water to the ground and ran up to him, and gave him a HUGE hug! I said “ARE YOU JOHN CAMPBELL?!” and he just looks at me and like “Dude… John… Your band has been such a huge influence on me” and I started crying and he gave me another hug and we talked for a good 10-fifteen minutes. The most important part was this, I said “I have that dream that you guys had man, I want to tour with you guys any kick some ass!” He said “When we started we were absolute shit, I could barely play my bass and nobody cared about us, but look where we are now! That could be you one day”. He shook my hand really firmly and said “Believe in yourself” and I was in complete awe. “I’m dead serious, believe in yourself , kid”. The manager walks out and John says “This is the manager” and I shook his hand too and we took a pic. He said “You gotta stop cryin for this pic though, it’s gotta be metal!”. He said “I’ll see you around kid” and walked through the door you see in the picture.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z183/Superpalle h/DSC00481.jpg

            My friend said “DUDE YOU JUST MET ONE OF YOUR FUCKING HEROES HOLY SHIT!” I started to cry again and sat down by the wall, and my friend said “You look like you just got laid!!” I started to laugh and Metallica was done their first song. I went down to the floor and had a blast with Metallica. During Master of Puppets I put up my lighter on the halfway mark and the whole stadium was lit up. We were all kinda humming to the guitar and EVEN THE SOLO! I was getting chills hearing the whole stadium sing along to it. A guy with a VIP thing around his neck shook my hand during the last half of the song and told me that I reminded him of when he saw Metallica in the eighties. I looked up near the end of the song and James pointed THE FUCKING DEVIL HORNS TO ME! I will never forget that. EVER!! The end result was James said Vancouver kicks mad ass and he loves us to pieces :haha.

            We decided to wait by the tour busses to meet the rest of Lamb of God. I was determined to meet them. I asked a security guard if these were Lamb of God’s busses and she said no. I decided to stay anyway. At 1 am, I see a shadowy face under a hoodie walk by, and I said “WILLIE!?!/ HOLY SHIT WILLIE?!?!” and he turned around and stuck out his tongue. He asked my friend for a smoke and I’ll say we talked to him for a good 15-20 minutes. I wish I recorded it. I thought about it but I thought maybe he’d be uncomfortable with that. His biggest influence was Metallica and he wanted to be just like Kirk Hammet. Interesting stuff. We took a pic with him and when he was leaving I Said “Dude, if someone tried to pull a dimebag on you guys I would dive on the stage infront of you and take the shot, I truly from the bottom of my heart wish the best for you guys. Win a fucking grammy, hit #1 on the board with Wrath, which I WILL contribute to, hell, I’ll buy 20 records” and he said “30!! BUY 30!!” we started laughing and we had one of those really long handshakes, yknow pushing eachothers fists back and forth. I told him he probably needs to sleep, but first I asked him where Mark and Randy where, he said “Mark should be out soon. Randy’s drunk and I have no idea where he is… I doubt Randy even knows where he is…”

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z183/Superpalle h/DSC00484.jpg

I just realised how fucked up my hair got... Wow...

            He eventually left and we waited a long time for the rest of the band to come out. My dad phoned me and SCREAMED at me to get the fuck on the skytrain as there was one left and my dad lives an hour away, and the skytrain is really fast. I have no idea where his house was so we’d be fucked. We had to leave, but thinking about it now, we should have fucking stayed anyway and slept in a bush. I would’ve done that to meet the rest of my heroes.

            They will be back in March, and if they aren’t they’ll eventually come back. I will, without a doubt, run into them again, John definitely won’t forget me. I know Willie looked kinda drunk so he might forget, but I have a feeling I’ll run into them again in the future.

LIVE THE DREAM!