The bartender's been told to make them stiff. Best not to piss off this crowd. Might as well clear the shelf of all the unnecessaries because tonight the call is beer and whiskey. You make your way through a sea of black shirts long beards and short cropped haircuts toward the front of the stage, under red hued house lights refracted by weed smoke, the smell of it thick and moist and mingled with sweat, a dog's hot breath on your face. Here is good - close enough to the emergency exits in case a fight breaks out. The people here aren't much for conversation - everyone's waiting with arms crossed and eyes fixated on the expectant stage. A pair of heavy boots appear at the stairwell, and as the band descends from whatever hell that spawned them so does the sweat. So do the rally cries, the fist pumps, the forks in the air. The hardest most rock solid among you admits to himself at least a head nod. Sound explodes outward like a thousand heavy hands to shake your soul. You'll remember its touch tomorrow by the ringing in your ears. Boom boom boom.

Center stage stands a six foot six bruiser. Seems like he's troubled by the voices shouting down at him or the ones in his head. He bats at his brain sporadically, interrupted by hard shoves to members of the mosh pit that swirls around him. A metalhead vortex. Willie Nelson on steroids - sixty something and solid. A pack of skinheads. An amorphous orange blob seeking to reconcile a lifetime of insult.  Beer tossed to the rafters rains down golden, soaking heads and seeping to the sticky floor. The pounding's too much for the bruiser. Security's escorting him out. On the floor in a pile of gangly limbs is his unsuspecting victim. Bang bang bang. 

By the time the band hits its stride there's not a soul who hasn't lost himself to the music. Everyone knows the hook. Everyone anticipates the highs and lows. The pauses and the pickups. If you didn't before you can almost feel it now. And by the time the sound dies down and all feet beat to the exits, you're buzzing. You're forgetting for a minute whatever elsewhere awaits you in tomorrow's workday. Vamonos, vamonos.