Eight Years Ago Today
Eight years ago today, at the tender young age of 17 (truly the perfect age–or so I thought at the time), a friend and I took off for Minneapolis (a 6-hour drive from our hometown of Sioux City, IA) to see a free concert. The Smashing Pumpkins played a 100% free show in downtown Minneapolis on Hennepin Ave. To mark this anniversary, I present my write-up of the trip that earned me an “A” in 11th-grade composition.
This is absolutely not political in nature, but if not for the Smashing Pumpkins, I never would have met and fallen in love with a girl from Connecticut and probably would still be clerking at Video Update (now Movie Gallery) in Iowa.
On their last tour The Smashing Pumpkins criss-crossed Europe and the U.S. performing for the sole benefit of local children’s charities. About mid-July, I remember catching a rumor on the internet about the Pumpkins playing a 100% free show on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Once I confirmed the rumor, I had to find a way to Minneapolis. “Not in my junker,” I thought to myself, “but I bet Samantha will want to go.” After talking with Sam, lying to our parents (my mother was in Iowa City at the time), and arranging to stay with my uncle, we hopped into her dark blue Buick Skylark, and sped away.
I was carrying only $28 cash and Sam only had checks with her. We decided to do what any teen low on the green would do; we went to every Hy-Vee in town and wrote personal checks for the maximum amount. Naturally, Sam didn’t have the money in her checking to cover the charges, so she planned on making a little transfer from her good ol’ savings account upon her return. Our money problems now resolved, we hit highway 75 and were on our way to Le Mars when we decided to stop at Hardee’s. If we learned nothing else, it is that fast food joints have awful coffee! It was about 8:00 AM…only 12 hours until the concert, and we had just gotten onto 60 heading north to Minnesota.
Considering Minneapolis is approximately 6 hours away, we were planning on making good time, driving down the road about 76 mph. It’s amazing what those pigs can do with a laser gun these days. That patrolman clocked us while he was going the opposite direction! I freaked out, wondering what the heck was going on, and Sam forced herself to cry knowing that cops are suckers for crying girls. Alone in the car, I could only fantasize about taking the wheel, backing into the patrol car, maybe breaking a few headlights, and all the usual anti-authority youth fantasy stuff. Well, suffice it to say that she now has a ‘record’ in Sioux County, and we stayed at least 5 under the limit all the way up to Minneapolis.
It was about 10:30 AM and we’d just gotten onto I90 East, where we learned what a summer does to an interstate. There was construction work for 35 miles. That was the most boring hour of my life that I’ll never get back. We did make it interesting somewhat by driving at the lowered speed limit, collecting a long line of cars behind us that could not pass. I also snapped a picture of mile marker 69 for my friends who don’t know what the mile markers in Minnesota look like.
At around 11:30, we made a pit stop at McDonald’s to use some gift certificates that Sam got for Christmas from her father. I ate a cheeseburger (if you want to call it that) and she had a Big Mac®. On our way out, she picked up an M&M McFlurry (which is a DQ Blizzard, McDonald’s style) for the road, thinking that a little ice cream never hurt anyone. Well, I had a bit of a stomach cramp by this time, and I had no desire to eat any of the McFlurry after Sam had eaten all she wanted. Being the nice guy that I am I offered to toss it out the window. Well, I got rid of the cup, but I got McFlurry all over the passenger window and inside the windshield. We had to pull over to clean it all up and we couldn’t help but laugh our freckles off at how exciting the trip had been so far. So far we had a blanket covered with ice cream, a speeding ticket and a string of bad checks.
Well, after that incident, we had turned north on I35 and were well on our way to Minneapolis. With nothing better to do, we flipped through the radio stations and listened to Iris about 6 different times in an hour. The remaining drive to Minneapolis was more or less uneventful, but we had decided to find my uncle’s house right off the bat, so we knew where to head after the concert. It wasn’t too difficult to locate, only about 3 blocks from the highway. We knew it would be no problem to find at night, so we left a note, and headed into the city.
For having never been to Minneapolis, we were pretty much lost. What were we supposed to do with six lanes of traffic going one direction when we rarely drive on two lanes? I told her to stay right, so that we may see our exit easier. We noticed that speed laws and turn signals are optional in Minneapolis, as most were driving over 70 mph and a hotshot in a convertible was darting in and out of traffic, switching lanes without signaling. Downtown Minneapolis is a whole different world. Every street is a one way street, except bus lanes, which go both ways. Our first mission was to find Hennepin Avenue, which was easy enough to locate because of the Rib festival happening there.
It was nearly 1:30 and we wanted to park and get to the stage. After 20 minutes of poking around, we finally found a parking ramp to go to, and a parking spot in the basement area. We walked out the same way we drove in, and looked like complete idiots emerging from a drive out ramp of a parking garage. We were cool about it. Carrying my backpack and her purse, we went to the mall and killed some time there, called our parents, and took a little rest. Next we decided to hit the streets and go to the stage. It was an incredibly hot afternoon, possibly the hottest all summer, and I was glad that I wore my white Smashing Pumpkins shirt, with “Leave Me Alone” on the back, instead of a black one.
We found the stage, it was right outside the Target Center, in a huge parking lot that was completely empty, but surrounded by fans waiting for the show to start. We had five hours until the opening act started, so I bought a tour shirt, with the dates listed on the back and a sticker, and that wiped out all my cash. Instead of waiting in the hot sun for 6 hours, Sam and I went to T.G.I.Friday’s and had a bit of cake and some Coke. I was super-anxious and I wanted to go out and wait next to the parking lot for them to let us in, no matter how long the wait, but Sam wasn’t so eager. She talked me into heading back to the car, to drop off my shirt and sticker, and empty some of the ‘unnecessary’ items from my bag. Finally heading back to the stage, we waited and waited.
It was about 5:30, and they let us into the parking lot, but it’s not as though the two foot tall barricades were all that effective. Sam and I got up to the very front fence, and noticed that there were people in the mosh pit* in front of us. They had pink bracelets on, and I looked around, and saw a guy passing out the bracelets. I didn’t know if we could get a bracelet, and I was hesitant to give up my good location for a small chance of a much better location, but we got the bracelets, and ended up about ten feet from the stage.
Still two hours until The Smashing Pumpkins were supposed to start…a band called Furslide came and played a short 30-minute set. The sun was really starting to bear down on us, and Sam sent me to get some liquid refreshments from the mall. After paying way too much for 2 Pepsis and a bottle of water, I found my way back to where Sam was standing. I started up a conversation with one of the scads of kids wearing a ZERO shirt, and he said that he wanted them to play, “that first song from Siamese Dream.” I was slightly offended, being a fan and all, and not able to imagine not knowing all the names to all the songs, I tried to tell him that they weren’t out promoting the album that they released in 1993. While they were setting up for the next opening act, the sponsor radio station, Rock 100.3 tossed a few beach balls into the crowd, keeping us busy until we popped them. Right before Cracker came out to play, a couple of DJ’s said that The Pumpkins were ready, and introduced us to the “Rock 100.3 Pumpkins”, which turned out to be a woman with really big breasts and an orange string bikini top on. Pretty clever I thought.
Cracker played about 45 minutes, and left us pumped up for the main event. It was 7:30, and they had started setting up the percussion for the Pumpkins show. They were supposed to appear at about 8:00, but I think they were just waiting for it to get dark, because they didn’t come out until 8:30. First James Iha, rhythm guitarist, then D’Arcy Wretzky-Brown, Bassist, followed by Billy Corgan, singer/songwriter/lead guitar carried their instruments onstage. Touring drummer Kenny Aronoff went straight to his drums unnoticed by the crowd. Billy and James opened by playing “To Sheila” a soft rocker that really seemed to work up the crowd. Next, the band played “Behold! The Night Mare” just as the sun set. The show lasted for about 135 minutes and was loaded with good music and even a tribal version of “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and an encore performance of “Transmission” by Joy Division.
The show ended at about midnight, the mayor had declared it “Smashing Pumpkins Day”, the radio stations played all Smashing Pumpkins’ music, and the 150,000 in attendance slowly migrated to their cars. Sam and I had stuck around for a few minutes looking for a guitar pick or a water bottle that Billy had thrown off the stage. No such luck, but we did cheer on some crazy stoned guy who hopped the fence and jumped around on stage, before security tackled him and dragged him off. We decided it was time to go, and made our way to the car. It cost us thirteen dollars for parking! Well, we hit the six-lane highway and headed for my uncle’s house, all the while we were blaring the Smashing Pumpkins that was playing on the radio. I had the window down and my arm outside the whole 30-minute drive. I’d never been on such an emotional high in all my life, occasionally screaming unintelligible things like, “yeah!” or “liar!” out the window and letting the wind whip through my hair. We got to my uncle’s house and he and my aunt and a friend were sitting out back, throwing back some beer and chatting. They had heard about the concert on the radio, and said they didn’t expect us back so soon, knowing that the traffic was awful. They welcomed us in, and asked to hear our tale of the concert and offered us food and pop and anything else we could want. I showed off my $25 shirt and talked about how much the show rocked. Sam was now convinced of the superiority of The Smashing Pumpkins and could not believe how amazing their performance was. I called my girlfriend to tell her about the show and all I wanted to do was sit down to relish in the moment.
We joined my uncle in the living room with my aunt, and their friend had left. We “BSed” about Iowa and Minnesota, and flipped through the channels. Turns out they had all their cable illegally, so I jokingly threatened to turn them in. We settled on a pay-per-view movie to watch, “American Werewolf in Paris.” It was a lousy movie, but at least it wasn’t a porno, which seemed to be the only other thing on. Sam and I crashed in a queen sized bed, me in a sleeping bag, her under the covers, and we woke up about 8:00 AM the next day.
My aunt had washed my shorts, which still had some of the McFlurry all over them and I got up and showered. Sam and I ate some delicious french toast, had some juice and milk, and then my uncle demanded that before we leave town, that we check out the Mall of America. Not being one to disobey my elders, we took off about 10:00 AM for the mall, which was only 15 minutes away from their house. We walked around and shopped for about 3 hours, and I still don’t think we covered every store in the mall, but we had to be going.
After about 2 hours, we were on I90, and opted to head toward Sioux Falls, just for fun. We got to a small town and stopped for batteries at a gas station right where highway 75 and I90 cross. Well, after buying batteries we went back to the car, and some old guy was checking it out, and there was a huge mass of green fluid oozing from underneath. The car had overheated, and the engine coolant had all leaked out, right there. It is a blessing that we had not driven any farther without stopping to find this out, or the car may have really broken down. We called Sam’s dad, and he said that we needed to wait for about an hour for the car to cool down, then add some engine coolant to it. Sam and I went over to Subway, and she bought us lunch to kill some time. After that, with nothing to do, Sam and I walked the highway up to the hardware store, and buzzed around in there, messing with funny stuff like farm toys and condoms just to pass the time. Finally, we returned to her car, and added the coolant, and started the car up. Motivated by fear, we turned off the A/C in the car, and drove home with the windows down, canceling our side-adventure to Sioux Falls.
We suffered the heat of mid-July at 65 mph with the windows down. It was really a hellish environment and we were both dog-tired. We made no more stops, instead driving straight home, and chatting. We got to talking, and I told her that she may dye my hair purple, if she bought the dye. So we did three things upon returning to Sioux City. Developed my pictures, bought purple hair coloring, and listened to the low quality tape I had made of the show.
It was those two days of the summer of my 17th year that defined my vacation. The lies, the mischief, the laughter, the night, the day, the close calls, and the thrill of it all have been with me since.
*The Smashing Pumpkins do not allow actual moshing at their concerts because a 17 year old girl died at a show in Dublin, Ireland because the crowd was too worked up.