The Gorge

Lollapalooza 7/30/96

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My uncle Darryl informed me one week before graduation that I would have to move out. I ended up moving in with Jack, my best friend at the time, because he was also in a situation with nowhere to live. I started working full time at Super Lube and he got a job at the local car wash. We moved in and quickly realized we didn’t have any furnishings. With a little help from a lot of people we were set up. A lot of debauchery went down at that townhouse because for the first time our group of friends had somewhere proper to party. Before this we partied a lot of at different outdoor locations or house parties, but those weren’t the norm. That summer was the first time I ever took LSD and I took it frequently. I was curious about it long before I did it and read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to it. It didn’t help that my friend Ross lived with a drug dealer and gave me about 100 hits to sell. I’m no drug dealer so what ended up happening was my friends and I would get bored with nothing to do so we did it. I never took more than 2 hits at a time because I had heard about people who took too much and thought they were an orange and everyone was trying to peel them, etc. That summer was also the only time I have ever smoked Opium, the first time I had Hash and there were plenty of Mushroom trips as well. I know this sounds really bad but I never strayed so far from myself that I couldn’t come back and I always made it to work and paid my bills as well. I viewed these experiences as mind expanding and still do. I learned many important life lessons that summer.

Anyways Lollapalooza’s lineup this year included Devo, The Ramones, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden and the almighty Metallica, all of whom I had never seen. I am not really a Devo fan but it was comical to see them all dressed in yellow pleather with silly hats. I am also not a big Ramones fan but I do appreciate their place in Rock N’ Roll and feel lucky to have seen them one week before their last performance ever. The real draws for me were Soundgarden and Metallica. I became a Soundgarden fan after hearing “Outshined.” I borrowed the Badmotorfinger album from my friend Claude and must have played it about a thousand times. I remember they opened with “Spoonman.” They had just released Down on the Upside a couple months before this show but aside from “Pretty Noose” and “Ty Cobb” their setlist was compiled from Badmotorfinger and Superunknown, with the exception of a cover of “Waiting for the Sun” by the Doors as the sun was setting behind them. Amazing. Chris Cornell played “Black Hole Sun” by himself acoustically, which was also pretty amazing. Ben looked pretty pissed off the whole time. The set came to a close with a fierce version of “Jesus Christ Pose.” This is another band I feel very lucky to have seen because they broke up less than a year later. I was blown away and I still had Metallica to look forward to. I had been turned onto them with the album …And Justice for All by my friend John. That is still my favorite Metallica album. After getting into that one I bought every Metallica album in existence. On this tour they were promoting Load, which had just come out less than a few months prior. I don’t remember them playing much if anything from this album. I do remember them rocking my ass off with all the classics.

Lollapalooza 7/4/95

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The nights were very long that summer and I smoked a lot of pot. I was looking for something in my dad’s closet and came across a brick of weed. This was more than I had ever seen and I could not resist but pinch a little something off of it. Once I got it back to my bedroom and broke it up, it turned into a quarter of an ounce! This kept our stoner appetites alive for a few months. At this point in my life I had started seeing a fiery redhead named Daisy who I had met through my friend Jackie. She was the first girl that I ever really cared about. I was smitten. She was a few years younger but seemed much wiser than her years. She was a prototypical rock chick who happened to play the piano since an early age. She was probably a big reason Marvin and I decided to attend Lollapalooza 95’. There were bands playing that we wanted to see and we had missed the year before because it occurred on the first day of school. Ironically 94’ was the year Nirvana was supposed to headline. We had also missed the magical 93’ lineup that showcased Alice In Chains, Tool, and Rage Against the Machine. Jackie, Daisy, and their friend J.R. had decided to go up the night before and camp. I later found out that on that night Daisy had fooled around with someone at the campground, which is what eventually broke us up. The temperature on the 4th of July was particularly hot that year. Beck was the first band to perform that I really cared about. This is about the time he had broke into the mainstream with “Loser.” The next band that I wanted to see was Cypress Hill. They came out on stage with a 15 foot bong and they were also the first band I had ever seen toke up on stage. The next band I wanted to see was Hole. Courtney Love was a mess because of Kurt’s death and acted appropriately. She kept taking her top off and berating the crowd but overall put on a decent show. The headliner that year was Sonic Youth. I was not and still am not that big of a fan but they definitely impressed me that night.

Stone Temple Pilots 7/30/94

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This was my first road trip concert because someone finally had a vehicle! If you’ve been to the Gorge then no explanation is necessary but if you haven’t been there I highly suggest you go to a concert there as soon as possible. It is located in Central Washington and is literally the most gorgeous outdoor amphitheater in existence. It is special because it is naturally carved into the side of a hill and all around are unbelievable views of the Columbia River flowing between the cliffs of one of the most geologically rich areas in the world. That someone who had a vehicle was my friend Marvin. I had known him since elementary school but we were now hanging out more because we shared a whole clique of friends and lived across a horse pasture from each other. The two of us went with our other friend Jack but unbeknownst to my parents. They were pretty strict about letting me go places. I don’t know if this was to be protective, controlling, or they just didn’t trust me. I was willing to risk the consequences of getting caught. So after I lied and told my parents I was spending the night at Marvin’s house we left for the Gorge. From where we lived it only took about an hour to drive there. The lineup was as follows: Jawbox, Redd Kross, the Meat Puppets, and Stone Temple Pilots. I hadn’t really heard the other 3 bands but immediately became an STP fan and bought the album Core after hearing “Sex Type Thing” for the first time. The album Purple had been out less than 2 months and had already become our group of friends staple summer CD. Apparently we weren’t alone because the album reached the top of the charts not long before this concert took place. The other 3 bands all put on an excellent show and we were in the floor section in front of the stage for the entire time. As soon as STP came out the floor section was so packed I couldn’t even lift my arms over my head to prevent it from being kicked by stray crowd surfers (think sardines). There was one gigantic lava light to each side of the stage, which looked extremely cool set against the night. Though I can’t remember exactly what songs they played I do feel lucky to have seen them at this point because they only had two albums of material to choose from. I also feel lucky because by the time their next album came out problems had reportedly started to arise from Scott Weiland’s budding obsession with drugs, which prevented the band from touring and eventually lead to their first disbandment. My first concert souvenir came from this show in the form of an STP t-shirt. The front had the words “Stone Temple” in the same cream color as the shirt surrounded by red and the back had the word “Pilots” in blue with a little stick figure guy riding a bike underneath. I loved that shirt so much that I destroyed it just from wearing it. The funny part about the shirt is that Marvin had purchased the same one and the next day we both wore them to the “Boat Races,” a.k.a. the biggest annual event in Tri-Cities, WA. It is one of only a handful of places professional hydroplanes stop each year to race but for most of the race-goers (including myself and associates starting just a few years later) it is just another reason to get drunk. We eventually ran into my parents at the races and though they had never seen me wear this shirt and Marvin was wearing the identical copy of it, I don’t think they were any the wiser to my whereabouts from the night before.

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