Ok, Here We Go…

 The concert that effected many moving pieces of my world for, literally, years….

The beginning…

The Black Crows at the Spokane Opera House:

For some reason my friend Heather’s dad picked up the tickets for me and Heather. I can not remember why as the normal protocol for concerts was pooling our money and giving it to Green-land as he was the concierge at what was the Cavanaugh’s Inn at the Park, and he’d grab them at 7am when they went on sale or the backup was if he was too busy he’d call me and I’d run down there, get the money and by them for everyone, but for this concert only Heather and I, from our inner core of friends, could go so…. Not clear on the purchase situation… Anyway, he accidentally bought three tickets instead of two.

Ok, that was the first link in the chain that would take my life in a different direction and change my relationship with my extended family for YEARS, I mean, to this very day!

So, Heather and I go to the movies. After Green-land and Derwood ( Darrin) moved out Heather would eventually become my roommate… At the movies we accidentally sit very close to my cousin and her husband. He was a super outgoing man child. He got my attention and we started talking. He asked if I’d heard that The Black Crows were coming to town, one thing led to the next, Heather said we had and extra ticket, he asks if he can buy it, ok fine, like I didn’t really know him well. He was going to school to be a pastor ( ironic in the end) and my cousin, whom I’d been SO CLOSE to growing up couldn’t be dirtied by a two bit Whore who’d been pregnant at 16. She’d always always been this morally superior, controlling, brat, but, what can I say, we were 9 months apart in age and we had each other. Now, this was the second link in the chain that was gonna blow shit up. What I didn’t know at the time is that they had been having marital problems from the get go. She sat there and smiled about the concert thing but it started something brewing that I had NO CLUE about.

Everyone who was going which also included my brother who had invited this guy I’d met once and went on one date with and didn’t care for at all ( I married him), and several other people had agreed to meet at Cavanaugh’s to pre game! 

The cousin’s husband who I’ll call G, called me the day of the concert and asked if I could give him a ride. I said sure, didn’t know that this was because cousin wouldn’t “Let” him use their car. We decided to pre pre game! I learned a LOT about him and my cousin that night and that should have told me to take him back home, hindsight!

We all meet at Cavanaugh‘s to have drinks. I’m not talking at all to the guy I don’t like. We eat dinner, G plays around with a little girl seated next to us, for some reason that pissed off that guy( my future husband) and I couldn’t have cared less what he thought. He was bitching and ruining my buzz, acting like I should reign in this adult man whom I barely know, because he’s related to me by marriage. It wasn’t going well. We all just kinda ignored them both and pretty soon the group of us began to walk to the venue.

My future husband was seated in the balcony, the rest of us on the floor. We took him up to the balcony in the elevator and when the door opened I said “ Get along little doggie” and he got pissed. I was baffled by the reaction because, what was offensive exactly? Some drunk chick says some rando saying and you act like I just kicked your dog? Blow me.

We go to our seats on the floor. We were very very close to the stage, big, HUGE, mistake! I put my purse under my chair. When the Black Crows came out a human wave pushed me up to the edge of the stage. Perfect, I’m in the mosh pit, the Black Crows have a mosh pit? Wtf? I lose track of my purse and my brother. Everyone was really helpful in looking for my purse while being pushed around. It was gone. I was freaking out. We all got separated from each other so I’m alone, in a mosh pit and the band is so fucking high on heroine that they can’t function. They couldn’t play the instruments, the songs were nonsensical, the tune was waaaaay off and I’m being shoved like I’m in the breakers in the ocean. I know that if I go down, I’m dead. I’ll be stomped on and ignored and my head was pounding. Drunk me was NOT prepared for a mosh pit, sober me would not have been prepared for a mosh pit. They played for about 30 minutes, thank God, before they decided that they were too high to continue. People were pissed. The angry wave piled out of the Opera House and I was still alone. This guy that would always hang out at that restaurant/bar I had worked at comes rushing up to me… “ Hi, Tracy!!!! This is fucked up, right?! Cool! How are you?” And my brain was fried, like the very last thing I needed was a flash from the past and a conversation!

Finally we all find each other, except for my brother. We waited for awhile and decided to head back up to the bar. When we walk in there’s my brother, WITH MY PURSE, he’d left when the pushing started. 

I needed a couple drinks for sure!

The aftermath of that one concert was that all my female cousins stopped speaking to me and told my aunt that my cousin’s husband was the father of OM, whom I gave birth to 12 months after I got married to that jerky guy at the concert :-) He was having an OFF day and got a really bad vibe off of G…. He was right. He and my cousin were divorced a few years later. Must have been bad because she’s almost 56 and never dated since! Still don’t talk to my cousins. Weird. Very weird. That concert was some strange stuff.

Word to the wise, never go to a Black Crows concert, I took the hit on this one for you guys. 

Tracy