Right, so, it was at the Hampton Beach Casino place in New Hampshire. To get you in, they drew "x"s on the backs of your hand like the cover of that Teen Idles album that Ian MacKaye did before he was in Minor Threat. Anyway, we got in and milled around to the right of the stage. The first band that came up was pretty emo (although, even though the thing I hate most about emo are the vocals, this guy had a good live voice. For an emo singer. Damn, I hang out with too many emo kids!), and that was unpleasant. They were called "The Confession". They played for maybe half an hour and then left. Then there was "In This Moment" (or something to that effect), a screamo band with a female singer who looked like a plastic doll in her huge pink dress and her blonde hair tied back. As is characteristic of the genre, she alternated constantly between high-pitched wailing and low belching. They sucked. The bassist was cool, though. He looked incredibly Greek, somehow. Then there was silence for a while. Every once and a while, a chant would emanate from some area of the crowd (which I was in the middle of now, having worked my way in during the second band) like "Megadeth!", "Dave Mustaine!" or "Fuck Lars!".
Then they arrived. There was some erratic drum-testing as Dave, his bassist and his new guitarist walked out front with their stuff. Everyone was cheering for a while, and the band did their thing, up on stage acting like no one was watching them. Then they launched right into like Sleepwalker or something (I don't actually remember what song was first). Almost immediately, the moshing started. Some guy behind me wasn't ready and got pushed forward. Basically, his beer got spilled all over my entire back. For about five minutes there, it was pretty tense as the crowd was so densely packed but an official mosh pit had not been formally established. There was really just massive swaying happening, where you were sandwiched on all sides and you would be pushed so that your feet were on the floor but your body was at a 50 degree angle to the ground. Then you would go just as far the other way. Eventually I (at this point separated form my friends) was forced behind the rectangular mosh pit. We didn't stay there for long, and soon we found ourselves in front of the moshing, and about 15 feet from the bar between us and the stage. It was at this point that through eye contact only, my friend convinced my to try my hand at crowd surfing for the first time. Well, I grabbed the shoulders of the massive man in front of me and my friend pushed me up. I more or less hurtled upwards and then was on my back, gliding in in the direction of the stage. It took me about ten or fifteen seconds to get there, and I think I kicked a few people in the head on the way. To them that were aggrieved, I apologize profusely. But your discomfort was worth my euphoria. So I got up to the front, not seven feet from Dave, and then bouncer reached out and pulled me down, lowering me slowly to the ground like one would a baby. Another bouncer directed me off to the left of the stage and a third pushed me along, as an old guy behind the barrier hi-fived me. I got out to the side and realized that I was now far from the middle. I saw a guy with a Jethro Tull shirt and yelled "nice shirt!". It took me a while to get back in. I took some good pictures with my cell phone around this point, but I can't get them onto my computer for some reason. Anyway, I eventually forced my way back to the middle and stayed there. The three songs that everyone sang were "Peace Sells", "Symphony Of Destruction", and the new "À Tout Le Monde". It was awesome when everyone sang. Then I surfed again and ended up on the right this time. I really stayed there until the end of the show, which was only about a half hour more. When it ended, I bought a water and we got out. It was about midnight, so naturally we stopped for a donut and iced tea on the way home. I got home at 1:00. I had an email from a friend asking if I was going to be attending an event at 8:00 the previous night. I wrote back "NO MAN, IT'S 1 AM AND I JUST GOT HOME FROM MEGADETH". Yeah. That's all. Cool.
It was epic, like The Lord of The Rings.
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