A Month and a Half in the
Life of...a Virginia Fueler

Show #4 - Washington, DC

I took the Metro into D.C. from Springfield, since I didn't want to deal with the joys of traffic, parking, etc. I bumped into Tom, Jimbo, and Carolyn when I switched trains at the Pentagon. After arriving downtown, I went to get a spot in line, where I met up with Joie and one her friends. The rest of the crew went to meet up with some other Fuelers at a local bar and to go to a radio interview with Kirk and Rob at a local skate shop. After a while, many familiar faces started showing up including Super Ron, Super Sandy, "Blue" (Mareea), Neil (a metclubber from the U.K.), Brad, Yuri, and Matt (metclubbers from the NY/NJ area), some groupie chick named Laura, along with a host of other Fuelers (I'm not naming all of you, for simplicity's sake). I did run into elusive Fueler, Steve Crowder, in line, whom I hadn't seen in a while, so it was good to see him and his wife, Leslie, again.

At one point, we were entertained by a local man who said he represented the United Negro Cheeseburger Fund. He performed an improvisational original song for some spare change. The guy was actually pretty entertaining and seemed to be coming up with lyrics on the fly. After working the line, I'm pretty sure he got enough to buy several "cheeseburgers". After standing in line for a bit, one of the local event staff came out and told everybody with club tickets to come to the front of the line, because the first 25 clubbers were going in for a meet and greet. I have no idea where this person got this idea from, but we all knew it was suspect. Of course, it turned out to be a load of B.S, but we didn't lose our place in line or anything, and some other clubbers got to move up at little bit, so it was no big deal.

Picture courtesy of MetOnTour.com

Once doors opened, we got to play musical chairs down on the floor, we went right to the "usual spot", but were told by local security that we had to move down to the short end. However, a couple minutes later, they let us go right back. Get this, the woman in charge of the local security even came back and asked, "Did I tell you guys to move before?", we said "Yes.", and then she apologized, which I thought was pretty cool of her. We ended getting our spot, so it worked out. Jeff, Brad, Laura, Matt (from And Jersey for All) and myself were all down on the rail trying to stand wide enough, so that we could squeeze as many people in as possible, once everybody else started showing up. Unfortunately, things started getting packed in pretty tight rather quickly, and our extra space got squeezed out. We only managed to get a couple more people in. Super Ron and Super Sandy were able to squeeze in next to Jeff. People were definitely packed in a lot tighter than at the shows I had been to last month. However, this would turn out to be a blessing for those who might have ended up with us on the rail had we been able to squeeze them in.

I've been around some annoying people at shows before, but I think the girl who was behind us in D.C. takes the cake for the most annoying.I don't know if she was drunk, mentally unstable, or what, but she definitely wasn't at the show to have a good time. In fact, it seemed like she was there to make sure anybody around her didn't have a good time. Throughout the entire show, this girl did nothing but complain and spew out obscenities non-stop. At one point, she even kicked me in the heel, which had I not had my boots on would've been ugly, but as it was, it probably hurt her foot more than it did me. Apparently, the girl was pissed off because I was too tall, and she couldn't see, which I haven't quite figured out, because we were at that spot long before she got there, which means she chose to stand behind me. In reality, she probably got there late and the only reason there was room behind me was because nobody wanted to stand behind me. She also kept telling people to keep their arms down. YOU ARE AT A METALLICA CONCERT, DID YOU JUST ASK ME TO PUT MY ARMS DOWN?!?!?

At one point, I think Matt asked her what her deal was and she complained that I was pushing her, which none of us were able to figure out, since I had been up against the rail the whole night, and she was behind me, which would make pushing her a rather impossible task. It didn't take long before she moved from behind me to behind some other people. I think she had something nasty to say to everybody around her. I felt bad for the guy that was there with her, because he took an onslaught of verbal abuse from her, and he probably thought he was going to get beat down because of all the people that she had pissed off that night. Ultimately, she ended up getting behind Jeff and started running her mouth at him. He politely turned around and eloquently asked her if she would mind quieting down (or something like that). (Ed. That's one way to put it.) She punched Jeff in the butt at one point and even caught the attention of one of Metallica's stage crew. She told him that we had been pushing her. He (the Metallica crew guy) told her he'd been standing there in front of us all night and that we hadn't done a thing. Then she decided to start mouthing off at him, and he asked her if she wanted to leave the building. She said "I don't care!", but then backed down a bit. I think by the end of the night she had run her mouth at Joanna, Laura, Jeff, Matt, Brad, Tracy, and myself. Here's a hint to the guy that came with that girl. LEAVE HER AT HOME NEXT TIME!!!

Now, back to the show. Despite the above mentioned thorn in our side, I had a great time at this show. Jeff's "Play Better Than You/Slither/Cure Medley" banner got a good laugh from Lars and James. James even covered his face and shook his head. At the beginning of the show Lars pointed over at us and said "Hey, I know you." and later came over slapped five with a couple of us. Rob came over and did a little sing along right in our faces again, too. The setlist for this show had some fresh changes to it from some of the shows that we had been to earlier in the year. "God that Failed" made it's debut on this tour and sounded very heavy. "Ride the Lightning" was also another pleasant surprise. It also marked the first time that I had heard "Unforgiven" live in a while, which also sounded good. It was good to hear "Disposable Heroes" and "Fight Fire with Fire" again, too.

After the show, I ran into a couple of people that I didn't get to see down on the floor. Joie was kind enough to offer Dawn and me a ride back to Springfield via her brother and father, who were both very cool (thanks for the ride!). Joie's dad even provided entertainment by telling us of his aspirations to hit it big at the casinos in Atlantic City (good luck with that!). It was nice change of pace to not have to travel far after the show, since I crashed at my parents house. Up next, Philly night #1.