Some bloggers are giving you the behinds the scenes/press pass/VIP access version of the Randall Island's Rock The Bells concert in NYC this past weekend. I, however, am a man of the people (sup) and am prepared to give you a 2 part account on what went well and what went wrong, from the perspective of a fan without a press pass or backstage access, or sleeves on his shirt. Today's entry will be what went wrong this Saturday. I attended Saturday's version of the event, being that i was very excited to get tickets when I heard about the event and purchased them before Sunday's event existed, which brings me to point number 1.
First off, fuck guerrilla nation or whatever the hell the "organization" who put this horribly run, downright dangerous, and hellish event on is called. For those of us who purchased our tickets all extra early back in May, you basically kicked us in the ballz by adding Rakim, MF Doom AND Boot Camp to Sunday's event but not Saturday's (also Erica Badu but, really who cares about that). It pretty much said "fuck you", to those of us who bought tickets early. Really, we appreciate it.
Second off, I don't know who Randall is, but I fully expected to be greeted by him when I walked onto his Island. "Hey guys, I'm Randall, enjoy your time on my Island" would have sufficed. My desire to meet this Randall does not stem from a burning need to thank him. No. I just really wish I had some face I could hold accountable for that stupid fuckin Island.
After the show (which was the heaven part, aka not this blog) we all piled into a mass mob of confusion and tried to exit the place. For some reason, barriers were set up around the main stage area. In fact there were 2 sets of barriers. Why? I have no fucking idea. Originally we figured you couldn't drink that close to the stage. Found out later that was wrong. I'd love to come up with a long list of humorous suggestions as to what these barriers were for, but I'm simply not that creative. There simply seemed to be no rhyme or reason for them, and all they really did, was create a long line of people waiting to get to the main stage area, and then AGAIN when they wanted to leave the main stage area. So as soon as Rage got off stage, about 10,000 people were all trying to get to the little entrance point that these barriers created. Great planning from the ass-fucking-shit-eating-pooper-scooper-sniffing-and-smiling-while-sniffing-poop-people at Guerrilla Nation. (but really, if I ever blow up enough to perform at rock the bells, I didn't write that, it was a ....something else that isn't me).
So after the pushing and shoving ended (security was a real big help, watching us with their eyes and stuff, great job, the 1 to 50 billion people security ratio didn't really help the mass exodus at all) , we finally made it out to where our cab initially brought us to the island, only to find out there were no cabs to bring anyone home. We figured parking at my brothers apartment in Astoria, being that its only a few miles from Randall's Island, would be a perfect idea to make our transportation easier on everyone. We were attending an outdoor event with 40,000 people and alcohol after all. Surely some cab company would realize there'd be literally thousands of potential customers waiting at the end of this concert, and would thus line up all around the parking lot at said island. WRONG we were!!! I don't know the reason for this. So, instead of hunting down a cab to take us the 2 or 3 mile trip back to where our car was, we walked around Randall's Island aimlessly for about 2 hours, with our thumbs shoved up our asses, while contemplating our options:
- Walk over the Tri-boro bridge back into queens, risking dehydration, passing out, getting run over by cars, and certain molestation by other concert-goers who found us passed out. (we tried this option at one point but were told not to walk up the on-ramps to the highways, in retrospect, good advice)
- Mass suicide
- Hunt down and murder the families of every Tri-boro Bridge Authority officer that gave us horrible and completely wrong directions to the pedestrian walk-way back to queens.
- Accept the fact this was our new home, set up shop and live off the land.
- Find Zach DeLaRocha and start the revolution.
Eventually our thumbs would not fit up our asses comfortably any longer and we decided on option 6 - Take the free bus back to queens that - a) we couldn't find for several hours, b) not one bridge authority figure told us about before they gave us awful directions to somewhere else, c) would have probably had a 2 hour wait to get on if we found it right away anyway.
We took the bus back to Queens, but fairly far from my brothers house in Astoria. I believe it took us to woodland or woodward or wood somethin or other (I don't know of any other parts of queens besides Astoria, the QB, and Shea Stadium, sue me) . We managed to find the most incompetent asshole cab driver in the city to take us back to Astoria. I was able to figure out he was deserving of such a prestigious title based on his taking us to 28th street when I clearly told him 28th ave (yea, Queens is really stupidly mapped out by the way. "Meet me at the corner of 28th ave, 28th street, and where they meet up with 28th place" is not a joke. That phrase has been uttered by someone who lives in queens at some point. No offense to the residents of Queens, but your boro makes no damn sense) So, yea that guy was a fuckin idiot. Hopefully, he crashed after dropping us off.
So after a dope all day concert event, it took us over 3 hours to travel about 3 miles. Our legs were tired, our feet were in severe pain, and our clothes were covered in the sweat of 1,000's and probably a little dirt. In retrospect, it was ALMOST all worth it. Never again will I go to Randall's Island. Die Randall. Die.
part 2, the heaven part, comming soon.........
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