Petty show at Darien Lake last night

[skcin]

OK, first my rant about Darien Lake. Scroll down to the actual review if you don't care to read my bitching. I haven't been there in a few years for a show, so I thought maybe I was mistaken when I said it's the worst venue ever. Nope, I was right all along. First of all - parking & traffic are 10 times worse than Blossom & Post-Gazette combined. Horrific. Took us over an hour to get out even after we waited for about 40 minutes & had a beer in the lot (actually, the lawn where they had us park.)

Secondly, the bag searches border on ridiculous. I had our Sirius radio in my purse, right on top & the chick examined it for about 2 full minutes. I pointed out the Sirius logo to her & told her it's a sattelite radio. She kept turning it over, pushing buttons. If I have recording equipment in my purse, would I have left it right on top? Ass.

From past experiences, I knew we had to stop at the "ID tent" to show ID & get wristbands. So is there a huge sign at the entrance telling everyone they must get a wristband to buy beer? NO. Do they check IDs right after the main entrace to keep things flowing smoothly? NO. They have a tent with no sign on it with no lines, so everyone just crowds in & tries to escape after they get their wrist band. And when people go to get beer & don't have a wristband, they send them away after waiting in a line for 20 minutes to go & wait with the crowd for their band for another 20 minutes. Nice.

We walked in while the Black Crowes were on. They sounded great. Of course, i missed most of them because I was wating in line to pee. That surprisingly only took about 15 minutes. Mark took that plus another 10 minutes to get 2 beers. I have to mention my disgust at the girl who walked into the bathroom barefoot. Add that to the grossest things I've ever seen. Reports on the men's room were worse - not only were they peeing in sinks, but the walls & the floors. Not a good day for flip-flops, boys. Ew.

The crowd. Hmmmm. Well, mostly young people (at 30, I think I was kind of old.) Lots of young wanna-be hippies, stoners, goths, jocks...you name it, they were there. And it seems they were all drunk. REALLY drunk. Falling down/screaming for no reason/bumping into people/singing wrong lyrics so loudly I couldn't hear Tom drunk. It was so f*cking annoying. People were cutting lines too - very classy. I almost did battle with some kid. I called him a piece of **** for cutting in front of me & he was like "I don't care if you yell at me, what do I care." I said "that's real nice, making these people who've been in line for 15 minutes wait longer because you need your food faster." Then the girl in front of me dropped her beer & it went all over his sandaled foot. I said "karma's a bitch, babe." He said "you're foot's wet too, so..." and petered off. Whatev. I finally got my beer (the only thing they hadn't run out of at 10pm) & tried to make my way back to my spot on the lawn.

Anyhoo - I vow to never get a lawn seat at DL again. Mark vows to never go to a concert again.

Actual review coming next...