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HOT_SUFFOLK_FORUM

                                             August 2, 2007
  Some of the Stage Crew gang
  I was hanging with were
  Dead Heads, and by extension
  they were up for going to see
  "Hot Tuna".

  So we went to see them
  perform live:

     "General Admission".            And never again would
                                     those two simple words
                                     have such an innocent
  Myself, I was something            ring to them.
  of a Jefferson Airplane
  fan, and I thought the
  Hot Tuna records I'd heard
  were at least listenable,
  and I'd never done a              This was at the mildly pathetic,
  "real concert" before...          slightly scuzzy Long Island hockey
                                    arena known as "The Suffolk Forum".

      People were screaming
      to each other across
      the parking lot:

      "*Hot* *Fucking* *Tuna*!!!!"      In retrospect:
                                        a common pattern
                                        of forced gaiety...
      The warm-up band was
      remarkable for their
      technical proficiency,
      and for the amazingly
      conceited, condescending    The audience was
      vibe the guitarist          screaming "Fuck
      managed to project.         You" at him, which     Though I later
                                  was understandable.    realized that
                                                         this was part
         Then Hot Tuna themselves                        of the ritual:
         started up, and I can                           the hatred of
         remember not a thing about                      the "warmup" band,
         the music they performed.                       which you did
                                                         *not* pay to see.
            My Dead Head friends, as it turns      
            out, were proud of their crowd               ("Warm-up" isn't
            surfing skills, and they were into            really it, it's more
            the game of repeatedly squeezing              like "filler".  Gotta
            their way up front, then retreating           make it feel like a
            and doing it again.                           big production, even
                                                          though the main band
            Myself, I was more interested in              isn't going to want
            not getting crushed to death, in              to play for more than
            this solid sea of humanity all                an hour.)
            pressed chest to back, elbow to     
            elbow.                              
                                               
                  One of my friends --
                  an asthmatic -- was
                  sucking on some dope
                  and managed to black
                  out for a minute.
                  Luckily someone thought
                  fast and held him up,       Some years later I talked
                  saving him from a           with another woman who was
                  trampling.                  at this concert -- she
                                              doesn't remember anything
                      (No doubt, she          about it, because she
                      would take the          was so wasted, she just
                      wheel if he was         went to sleep in the back.
                      seeing double.)
                                                     Ah, Long Island...
                                                     Ah, the Seventies...

            We were all fused together
            into a physical mass, but
            by no means a spiritual one...



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