At music festivals, the greatest gap — literally, or figuratively — isn’t between the headliner and opener, or the front row and last row, or rich-guy financer at the side of the stage and drunk dude in dreds who climbed over a fence and snuck in. No, it’s the societal distance between the fancy-pants VIP section and green rooms and the row of stank-ass port-o-potties. For the former, we usually do anything to get into; the latter, we do whatever it takes to avoid (methods of clenching immediately come to mind).
But tonight at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium, where the Replacements, the Hold Steady, and Deer Tick are holding court, those two worlds have collided.
Check the video below, posted moments ago by the Hold Steady. And imagine how many people will unsuspectingly walk by, holding their noses — if not for the shit and piss, then for that damn rock and roll excess deep within.