have fear! the threat is real!
Looks like I was a little premature by declaring myself fear-free this morning because I have seen the sign of armageddon and lo, it was ugly and frightening and almost caused me to run off the road.
As I drove past the Nassau Coliseum this morning, the sign came to me in yellow dot-matrix lighting, bigger than life and as evil as death. There, up on the giant electronic billboard, stood the seventh sign of the apocalypse:
Journey/Styx/Reo Speedwagon Wednesday, July 09, 2003 7:00pm
I slammed on my brakes. I panicked. Do I go pick up the children from school? Do I call 1-800-TIPS? God damn it, Rumsfeld never told me what to do in this situation. Why is the terror alert still at yellow if this kind of stuff is being advertised right in front of our eyes?
I decided to make my way to work, chain smoking and cursing the whole way here. I eyed every other car suspiciously, looking for people wearing parachute pants or Members Only jackets.
As soon as I got here, I decided to dig deeper into this terroristic threat. Surely, if this cell of Journey/Styx/Reo was operating right out in the open, there had to more sleeper cells around, ready to pounce on us at any second.
I hit the motherlode on the first try: The Rock Never Stops tour.
Warrant. Kip Winger. Slaughter.
My heart sank. Chills went down my spine. They say there is nothing to fear but fear is itself, but damn. This must come pretty close. I wondered if Cheney knew about this, if Powell was drawing up maps and readying a dossier to present to the U.N. These guys are so brazen, they put up a page showing where and when they will attack!
More research resulted in a phone call to my doctor asking him to double my Paxil dose before I had a nervous breakdown. These sleeper cells are everywhere, buying up the hairspray in your town, walking around in leather pants and knocking on the door of ever Mary Kay salesperson on your block. They're beckoning your girlfriends with their plaintive whines and shaking hips and loud guitars.
You know the names. They've been whispered in silent reverie by their legions since the dawn of the age of big hair. Def Leppard. Kiss. Iron Maiden. Loverboy. Sammy Hagar. Quiet Riot. Whitesnake.
Summer of Fear, indeed. And it's coming to a venue near you.
Comments
AAAAAHHHHH! Run away!
Posted by: Solonor | June 23, 2003 11:08 AM
AAARRRGGHH! MY EYES!
Oh wait, I have tickets for the Fort Wayne Styx show.
Nevermind! :-)
Posted by: Brian | June 23, 2003 11:09 AM
Heh...The three bands perfoming a medly...Open Arms/Show Me the Way/Can't Fight this Feeling Anymore...waves of suicides follow, along with a number of emergency room visits due to people lodging pencils in their ears.
Posted by: brad | June 23, 2003 11:18 AM
Oh, and you forgot about Ratt.
Posted by: Solonor | June 23, 2003 11:19 AM
Styx was on Bob & Tom this morning... playing their new single... new single? Are you kidding?
Posted by: Scooter | June 23, 2003 11:30 AM
Hey. Iron Maiden is no 'big hair' band.
Posted by: Jay Caruso | June 23, 2003 11:43 AM
so, are you going? ;)
Posted by: kat | June 23, 2003 11:47 AM
Don't stop believin'.
Posted by: dave | June 23, 2003 11:47 AM
the Big Hair dragged me to one of those HairFests last summer...
Faster Pussycat, Winger, Cinderella & Poison at Nissan Pavillion in Bristow, VA.
We counted 23 mullets, which is actually a low count @ Nissan.
(Big Hair says we weren't in full MULLETSEARCH™ mode, or the count would have been much higher)
Posted by: Rob | June 23, 2003 11:51 AM
FORGOT!
guy from Poison said their next stop was Pittsburgh...
Mullet count would be in the thousands!
Posted by: Rob | June 23, 2003 11:53 AM
Some friends of mine went to that concert a few weeks back when it was in our area.
I love them to death, but we do not share musical tastes!
Posted by: Ith | June 23, 2003 12:03 PM
Heh. Saw the Simpsons episode where Homer has the cross the River Styx, and there is Styx music playing... he says, "I really am in Hell!"
Posted by: Jon | June 23, 2003 12:16 PM
I'm going to see Blue Oyster Cult this Friday at the Grand Casino in Tunica, Mississippi!
Posted by: David | June 23, 2003 12:20 PM
Minnesota survived the Journey/Styx/REO invasion just fine. Quit worrying. This isn't the Endtime or anything.
And quit making fun of Def Leppard, damn you. Pyromania is the greatest album ever. EVER!
Posted by: Keith | June 23, 2003 12:24 PM
I was in a New Mexico casino this weekend, and saw the following ticket: How about Eddie Money with Foghat opening? Two Tickets to Crap Rock Paradise! Slow Ride to Hell!
Posted by: Norbizness | June 23, 2003 12:50 PM
Although I'm not a big fan, I too would have to quibble with the inclusion of Iron Maiden in the list. Mostly 80s band, sure; long hair, sure; but not a hair band. Still, a great post on a dismal, rainy (well, it was when I last saw the outside world at 7:30) day.
Posted by: Steve Gigl | June 23, 2003 12:55 PM
This reminds me about the time I was talking to Tom Verlaine and my friends and I told him we heard on the radio that Molly Hatchet was touring Florida and he actually turned pale.
Posted by: Andrea Harris | June 23, 2003 01:03 PM
What an opportunity! Get all the fans in one place and turn on the gas.
Posted by: Paul | June 23, 2003 01:10 PM
OH, you know you want to go...
Posted by: zombyboy | June 23, 2003 01:14 PM
Jon, I thought the exact same thing.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMMMMMM SAAAIIILLLLIIINNNNNNGGGGG AAAAAAWWWWWAAAAAAYYYYY.......
Enjoy THAT being stuck in your head all day.
Posted by: spin | June 23, 2003 01:46 PM
I am SO not surprised to see that they're stopping in Pittsburgh ... but the question is, will I be making the journey there to see them? ;)
Posted by: dawn | June 23, 2003 02:14 PM
So Michele, you're going with me, right?
Posted by: Faith | June 23, 2003 04:09 PM
My younger sister reported that she went to see Styx, Journey and REO when they played in St. Louis this weekend. I'm worried about her.
I told her that I hope she wore plenty of Aqua Net and a good pair of acid washed jeans. And that she got extra points if the El Camino she drove had Van Halen and K-SHE* 95 bumper stickers plastered on it.
You're right, Michele. The threat is all too real. Haha.
*a crap-rock station in St. Louis. The running joke there is that the call letters stand for "Keeping Stupid Hoosiers Entertained."
Posted by: Anne | June 23, 2003 05:00 PM
Anyone can WARN us about the threat - the question is, what sort of plan do you have to save your readers (and the rest of the world) from this aural WMD???
Posted by: MikeR | June 23, 2003 05:52 PM
Anne on KSHE:
...a crap-rock station in St. Louis...
Dude, you are like, so out of it. KSHE torques, man. When I was in high school, it was the only AOR station in town. They like, played choice cuts of Pink Floyd and Blue Oyster Cult and the Moody Blues, when all the other stations were playing the Starland Vocal Band and Tony Orlando. Why, sometimes the DJ would put on a Yes record (made of like, vinyl, dude) and go get stoned for four hours, and the record would skip and skip and skip and nobody would notice. Dece.
Is Al Hofer still there? He must be a hundred and eight by now. I used to know his cousin, man.
Posted by: Angie Schultz | June 23, 2003 06:06 PM
(Looking around shyly)
Umm... I LIKE Styx.
Especially now that Dennis "Come Sail Away" DeYoung is gone.
REO Speedwagon can burn in the fiery pits of Hell, though.
Posted by: Evil Otto | June 23, 2003 07:40 PM
"Oh, and you forgot about Ratt."
Until now, you bastard!
Posted by: Michael Wagner | June 23, 2003 08:00 PM
Best. Homeland Security post. Ever.
Posted by: brett | June 23, 2003 08:31 PM
I would love go see any of those gigs, alas none of them are coming to Maine. *&^%! Althugh I have to say I could deal without seeing REO.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge | June 23, 2003 11:31 PM
Angie on KSHE:
"Is Al Hofer still there? He must be a hundred and eight by now. I used to know his cousin, man."
Goes to show what a small town St. Louis seems like at times. Hehe. That's part of its charm, actually, I don't know, Angie, since I don't live in the Gateway City these days. But I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
I'm sure KSHE rocked, back in the day. I think my sentiments about the station are more informed by my overall disgust with the rigid formatting of broadcast radio.
Posted by: Anne | June 23, 2003 11:58 PM
Anne---I did some googling after I posted the above, and found a post asserting that KSHE is the longest-extant rock station (dubious) or perhaps the first FM rock station (less dubious), having begun in 1976.
Someone corrected that first guy, saying that KSHE started in '67, but last updated their play list in '76. Sounds about right.
(I haven't lived in St. Louis for nearly a decade, hence the nostalgia.)
Turn it up, man, they're playing "Don't Fear the Reaper". Wwwwwoowwww.
Posted by: Angie Schultz | June 24, 2003 12:35 AM
Actually, Angie, I did listen to "Monday Night Metal" (which was on Tuesday evenings, of course) when I was in seventh and eigth grade in the late 1980's. So I credit KSHE for introducing me to Anthrax and Testament. Otherwise you can still smell the spilled bong water!
Posted by: Anne | June 24, 2003 11:23 AM
hey now... Iron Maiden were never a hair band... the rest I agree with, but don't be dissin' Eddie now ;)
Posted by: ann | June 24, 2003 05:05 PM
Do they still use that stupid pig logo that I remember from the late '70s? All I remember was them playing "Come Together" years after it was apparent that the Beatles weren't going to do so.
Posted by: Dark Avenger | June 25, 2003 09:38 PM
Iron Maiden is NOT one of those cheesy hair-bands. As a matter of fact, neither was early Whitesnake (see Love Hunter, Live... In The Heart Of The City or virtually anything else Bernie Marsden and Mickey Moody played on. The Pre "Whitesnake '87" sound was blues rock and damn good, too.)
I guess you missed it when I said I'm going to the opening show of Maiden's US tour in Worcester, eh? Maide, Dio & Motorhead.
Posted by: Jim S | June 26, 2003 12:21 PM
I LOVE MMMMETALLLLL!!! I found out about it on KSHE 95 in the good old 1994 on Monday Night Metal! It was on Tuesday nights from 10:00-12:00. I secretly stayed up late to hear/record it. I should have recorded the commercials, too! I was in 6th grade. There was one for Club 367. "This is the sound of metal on Broadway." (You hear the sound of metal dropping.) There was another place, then, "And this is the sound of metal at Club 367." (You hear the ruliest metal song!) They played the good metal like Biohazard, Sepultura, Pantera, Prong... The good metal. They played Slayer, too. I just wish I remember if they have ever played Iced Earth.
Anyway, I don't consider Iron Maiden as a butt-rocker hair band either. It's butt-rock music: Ratt, White Snake... and the other 80 bands.
The crappiest thing KSHE 95 ever did was taking out Monday Night Metal. That's why I want to be back in 1994.
Posted by: Annie | September 9, 2003 01:03 AM
What does AOR mean? I was born in the 80's, so I don't remember much of it. My coming-of-age group was Nirvana.
Posted by: Nessa | March 18, 2004 09:39 PM