Partying with the Band

I was driving to work yesterday, and a song came on the radio by the band "Bad Religion" and it sparked this story that I have yet to tell. So now I am here to tell it. This was back in my college days. It was the summer and I went to the Brewer game with Kaker, Lisa and Megan. There might have been some other people along but those are the only one that I remember. I had only met Lisa and Megan a couple of times, most of what they knew of me was from stories that Kaker told them. They had a lot to learn. We started tailgating, and I don't think we even had a grill, I think we were just drinking beer. I dumped a 12 pack in the cooler, and Lisa said to me "If you put the 12 pack box on your head and go wave to cars (as they were pulling into the parking lot) for 5 minutes, I will buy your ticket into the game." I gave Kaker the "Are you kidding me look" grabbed the box and proceeded to wave and yell at every car that drove into the parking lot. And nearly every car was honking or waving back to me. Eventually Lisa came over and grabbed the box off of my head because she wanted to wear it and wave at the cars. A little while later as we were sitting around Megan said to me "I will give you $5 if you go and play football with those kids over there." Again I gave Kaker the "Are you kidding me look", I stood up, walked over to the kids that were throwing around the football and I immediately installed myself as the quarterback. We go into the game, and this is at the old County Stadium. We were sitting in the bleachers. It was far from a full house and we were just sitting there enjoying the game. We noticed this group of four guys that were kind of dirtball looking, ripped jeans, long hair, that were sitting down the bleachers from us. And they had back stage passes around their necks. Megan went down to talk to them, and sure enough, they were the band "Bad Religion". We talked to them for 2 or 3 innings. Kaker quickly turned into Mr. Rollingstone reporter and was asking them questions like "What influence did the Beatles have on your musical style?" Easy Kaker. I just wanted hear some of the groupie stories. The band left before the game was over, but said that they would leave some tickets for their show that night at the box office for us. In the late innings of the game, I strolled over to a spot above the visitors bullpen and started harassing the relief pitchers. After a couple of minutes of giving them a hard time, they finally acknowledged me. I was trying to get a souvenir, I was asking for a ball or a rosin bag, anything. They were having nothing to do with that. Finally I convinced one of the pitchers to throw me a piece of chewing gum. As I stated, we were drinking beer in the parking lot and I probably had too many. That pitcher must have thrown at least 5 or 6 pieces of gum up to me, and I dropped every one. I remember I yelled down to him after I dropped yet another piece of gum "I play soccer, try kicking one up here." He quickly stopped acknowledging that I existed. After the game we were deciding what to do. I said that we had to go to "The Rave" to see the band, after all they did leave tickets for us. Everyone finally agreed with me, so we went down to "The Rave". Megan went up to the box office window and said "I know this is going to sound weird, but we met the band at the Brewer's game and they said they were going to leave us some tickets." The lady at the window said "Oh yeah, they told me about you, here you go." So we are in the show. I had never heard Bad Religion before. Not really my kind of music. We get into the concert and the area in front of the stage is just one huge mosh pit. We stood at the back for a song or two and then we decided that someone had to get up to the stage to show the band that we were there. I got elected. As the next song started I ventured into the mosh pit. I got tossed around pretty good in the pit, but I had my ticket stub in my one hand up in the air. Finally the guitarist saw me and smiled back at me. So at least they knew that we showed up to the concert. I stayed up by the stage for one song then got out of there. When I got back to Kaker, Megan and Lisa, I was just dripping with sweat from being in the mosh pit. It turned out to be a pretty good night, I got paid $5 to see the Brewers and Bad Religion for free. Well that is my hanging with the band story. I am not sure I have told that one here or not.