I have been to exactly one stadium rock&roll concert.
February 1977, Omaha Civic Coliseum. Sold out show. The huge crowd outside began to push, broke the doors off and bulldozed their way inside. The ticket-takers ran. I and my friend were trapped in leading edge of the surge. My feet were lifted off the floor and somehow my legs became entangled in a turnstile. I screamed in pain. I had the beginnings of the Voice even then - overtones and undertones that command attention. I MADE someone help. Some big guys lifted me up even higher and surfed me to safety. I was reunited with my friend. My knees hurt terribly, yet we staggered into the open floored arena to await the spectacle. I don't remember much of the show.
(Uriah Heep opened, they had a Leslie rotary cabinet for the organ player, it had the covers off; the spinning top rotor speaker was visible, accelerating and decelerating. So I focused on that. So that's how organ players get that delicious warbly sound!)
KISS at volume. The minute bassist Gene Simmons started his pelvic thrusting thing, i lost all interest in the band i'd been obsessed with for 2 years. Ewww, sex. Yuck. I was there for the makeup, costumes, simple powerful songs, basslines i had spent time learning in front of our stereo.....and sheer curiosity. Every 15-yr-old needs to go to a rock show initiation! Even when watching Big Daddy Don Garlits' top-fuel dragster way back when, I had never been subjected to that level of NOISE as this wall of speakers was pumping out. It was WINDY up there 50 feet from the stage! Even with tearing insulation out of my coat to stuff into my ears, my whole body was assaulted. I still had my un-cancelled ticket in my coat pocket. I sold it on eBay 40 years later for $100.
I've never been to an indoor show since, and when at small outdoor shows, i remain on the periphery, and always know where all the exits are through the fences. I avoid crowds as a matter of course. The presence of too many human minds is a psychic scream i can't unhear. Let alone deal with the stench of their personal grooming potions!
Two years later 1979, eleven people were killed at a similar situation in Cincinnati at a rock concert. Eight dead at the Astroworld show. Europe has had several soccer-fan crush tragedies, and religious festivals involving thousands of people have also resulted in fatal crushes in India and Saudi Arabia. Being squeezed to death under a flailing mass of humans sounds perfectly horrid.
