We played loud rock music for SIX HOURS that night … starting at 11pm, our last set BEGAN at 5am… we may have been in our early twenties, but we weren’t robots: we were drained. From the extreme volume, the crowd, and the threat of worrying we could get canned by a crazy club owner at any moment, it was a loooong night.
The good news is that Cosmo didn’t fire us. There had been a steady stream of incoming patrons, as if they were getting bused in from somewhere. And all of a sudden, the place was just packed. Every bar in there had people shoulder to shoulder, with bodies trying to squeeze in to get themselves noticed by a bartender. This made Cosmo like us … a lot. The crowd all appeared to have just woken up from a nap: refreshed and full of energy, slamming down drinks and throwing themselves on the dance floor, they were wired for action. It was one a.m. and their night was just beginning.
I soon learned I had to stay in the dressing room during our breaks due to the severe action going on – it was overwhelming. I found this out just after our first break when I felt a bit thirsty and thought I’d go get myself a drink at one of the many bars. I was suddenly surrounded by drunky people blabbering painfully loud in my ears. They were requesting songs, asking for phone numbers, dates; there was touching, hugging attempts, and other maneuvers that I probably could have pressed charges over. I made a beeline for the back of the stage and stayed there for the remainder of the evening. Cosmo let his office staff, his Dobermans, go home early; we were getting the idea that it was a very good night for him, for the band – for everyone.
By a quarter to three in the morning, we started our fourth set… the whole place was misty, crowded, smoky – this was back in the day when smoking was not only okay in bars, it was recommended. We started the set with ‘Mystery Achievement’ by the Pretenders – with a long opening, and a bass line riff that we milked forever. There’s some ‘ahhhhhh’s ‘ from me, more guitar licks, some drum accents, and before we knew it, we had already killed five minutes. All the while this milking of the opening riff was like honey to a bee: the folks just kept coming up on the dance floor. The gigantic square parquet supermarket floor was completely filled with people dancing, and their heads bopping to the beat of our music.
I don’t know what song it was – not that it matters, but we all noticed her at the same time: a pretty and somewhat inebriated gal (if they are dancing alone and staring at you without blinking, they are drunk), her eyes absolutely fixated on the band. It was like the crowd on the floor had given way to allow her some more room: her wiggling and swaying became the entertainment. Wearing sprayed- on- tight blue jeans, she had long blond hair, big eyes and bigger boobs – and she was wearing a flimsy green tank top with miniature straps. This top did not appear to offer any type of support and based on the jiggling that we were witnessing, it was evident she didn’t have a bra on. She was getting into the song we were doing, and was grooving away, eyes fixated on our guitar player. For some reason we all knew that tank top wasn’t going to stay up – the straps looked really flimsy. She was shimmying, and we just knew it would be any moment … and sure enough, out they came! Her tank top was down to her knees and she didn’t even blink. Wheeee! She was feelin’ groovy, man. Since she was facing the stage, only the band and a few folks that were in front of her could get a look at her boobage like we did – all the guys in the band were smiles ear to ear, ‘now this is what I’m talkin about’ kind of looks…
It was like giving the guys a shot of espresso – they were so pumped up by their boob sighting – they had to turn up the volume even more!! Yeah!!! I was groaning. Really? I said to myself. The boobs were stealing the show. Then suddenly something went terribly wrong –we watched the crowd on the floor split up into two sides, to the left and to the right of the girl with the big gazungas. There were fists flying everywhere – it was our first bar fight! The girl and her boobs were nowhere to be seen – it was mayhem!
We couldn’t really see exactly what was going on, but from our elevated vantage point it looked like a small windstorm of people started to spin around the girl, and we watched it getting bigger and bigger, just swirling around. This chain reaction got even larger, drawing in people from each side until there were no people left on the dance floor – people were coming up from their seats to join in on it. At this point, we were awestruck. This huge ex supermarket turned nightclub, with its multiple bars and gigantic dance floor, packed to the gills at 3 am with a boatload of rowdies, was in the midst of the largest fight I had ever seen in person – and we were no longer the entertainment. We all kind of looked at each other, realizing that something serious was going on and we just stopped playing mid-song, mouths agape, to observe and perhaps retreat to a safe zone if necessary. We continued to watch the massive swirl of fists and feet circle around, and just like a tornado, it moved off to one side … an army of bouncers came from nowhere and corralled the storm of people. These big buys, arms outstretched and moving quicker than than the fighters, helped swirl them off the dance floor, by the bars, and right out the front door.
I’m one of those people who picks a car based on the color. I prefer a color that hides dirt since I never seem to find the time to wash my car. I always have something else to do. And the few times I do wash my car, it will either rain the same or next day or a flock of birds will come out of nowhere to leave their deposits – frankly I feel that rain is a cost effective way of keeping a car clean. On this particular day of the gig, it was a beautifully sunny day and I had some time to kill before leaving for the club. I was proud of my clean shiny Buick Somerset car and even scored a nice parking spot close to the nightclub’s entrance. I was getting congratulations from everyone in the band for getting my first car wash of the year – it was June. A momentary blip in my brain thought of my car as we watched them swirl out the door … ‘no way, man …’
Back to the nightclub action, as we watched the crazed rowdies swirl out the front door, we resumed playing, bringing the rest of them back on the dance floor with Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ … the guitar riffs in this song got their heads back to bopping like nothing ever happened. As the night wore on, I had heard that the fight was over the girl with the big gazungas. There was a current boyfriend and a ‘would-be’ boyfriend, and the current one was getting jealous over the ‘would-be’ … good thing he didn’t notice she had her eyes laser locked on our guitar player. Anyway, that’s how the fight started – one swing led to a hundred, they beat the crap out of each other and then they all had more shots and beers.
Wow – what a long night. As much as I loved it all, I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to go home and get some sleep. I was burned out. When I shuffled to the door to leave at 6am, the sun was already up and it hurt my night-clubbed eyes as I walked out to the parking lot … squinting as I walked to my car, I noticed something on the hood. A big clump of hair was attached to the hood ornament. My car looked like a crime scene. The hood had body-sized dents on it – one on the left, one on the right. There was blood and even more hair on my windshield. Since my car was a shade of red anyway, it was hard to tell how much blood was on there. I looked around to check out the other cars — nope. Just mine. In the wee hours of the morning, the nightclub tornado had touched down on my car and burned out its fury on my clean, shiny Buick.
Geez, I knew I shouldn’t have bothered washing that damn thing.
theclubsinger 