The Hill Man’s Blogspot

Dramamine

It was raining when we caught the train at the station in Fort Washington. It was only a light rain, and it was the middle of August, so it wasn’t too bad.  My friend Mike and I met up with two other kids at the train station then joined up with three more girls when they got on the train at the Oreland stop. It was the middle of the afternoon so we had plenty of time before we had to be where we were going, but the problem was that none of us knew exactly how to get there.

The train ride into Market station took about an hour, but it was still raining by the time we had navigated our way out of the subterranean train station/mall and out onto the wet streets of Philly. I decided that I had a rough idea of how to get where we wanted to go. By this time we had decided we would stop to get cheese steaks before venturing down to the river. We went to Jim’s, which seemed like the place everyone had chosen as a haven from the rain. It was packed and we could barely move inside. A big black guy with a Star of David necklace curtly made my cheese steak, which I ate upstairs in a crowded room, huddled around a single table with my 6 other friends.

By the time we had finished our cheese steaks and had begun to dry out we had to once again venture out into the rain. By this time I was even more completely disoriented due to our detour to Jim’s, but I used my superior orientation skills to figure out our route. We ventured down towards the Delaware River, passing through the more historical parts of Philly and over I-95.

We reached Festival Pier about 15 minutes before the concert began. I had wanted to get there earlier, but of course my companions; the girls in particular, enjoyed whining. We did not get the front row positions I had wished for, but we were a respectable twenty to thirty feet back. Within a half hour of our arrival the population on the pier had increased tenfold, and the first band had taken the stage. They were called Love as Laughter. I had seen them once before a few months ago. The lead singer was drunk then, and he was drunk again at this venue, as were a plethora of my peers around me. Nevertheless, the band was very good.

After their set was over another opening band took the stage. This one I had never seen before, but they did a respectable job. Yet another group took the stage after the previous, but this was unexpected. While the two previous were indie rock bands, the three performers I saw before me were not. Instead they were a rap group, and an interesting one at that. Their performance at the start was amusing, but I quickly tired of it after about an hour. By this time three of my friends had sought shelter from the rain, which had begun to increase. The crowd around me was engaging in various illegal activities, which my friends and I were not participating in. Among the more memorable examples was a group of people smoking through a collection of George Bush masks, as well as a thoroughly inebriated young man running about with a very nasty black eye.

Sometime around nine the rap group, called Clipse, left the stage, and the stage crew began setting up for the main event.  Around fifteen minutes later Modest Mouse took the stage. From there they went into among one of the best sets I could have imagined. I was almost killed on various occasions from mosh pits, and had to make special efforts to make sure that one of the girls, weighing a little over a hundred pounds, was not crushed inadvertently. Despite all of this, I loved the atmosphere. The music, and the band captivated me in general. Almost a half dozen musicians populated the stage playing their respective instruments. Two drummers pounded frantically on their drums. The bassist and backing instrumentalists played seamlessly. However, the most entrancing musician on the stage was by far the lead singer, Issac Brock. His wildly offbeat way of performing was remarkable. He possessed a great amount of charisma, something unexpected from a man with a heavy lisp.

I forgot about the rain, about being soaking wet, about the hundreds of drunk people all around, and the fact that the last train was leaving soon, and that we had to get back to the train station. When Emily reminded me of this fact, I told her that I was willing to stay and hear the encore even if I had to sleep in Philly. They would not let me do this, so I countered with the suggestion that they could start back and I would catch up. So with that the rest of my friends left Mike and I to watch the encore.

We did not get through the whole set, but decided to start back and catch up with our friends. We broke into a light jog along Penn’s Landing, eventually catching up to our group. We were still in a rush to get back to Market Station, so we hopped onto an overpass over I-95, which was not among our brightest decisions. We were a motley crew jogging down the streets of Philly at eleven o’ clock at night. The girls were jogging barefoot down the sidewalk, unable to run in their flip flops. Even the bums were giving us looks. We made it into the station with just minutes to spare, out of breath and soaking wet. We ducked inside the then almost empty Market Station, walked quickly passed the hobos who had passed out in the doorways. We made it to the train platform, collapsing onto the benches of the platform just as the train came roaring in.

Filed by Mr. Hillman at March 28th, 2008 under Confessions of Serial Teenager