For Your Pleasure - Here I Go Again...

17th May 2011

Post with 18 notes

Here I Go Again…

It might not be major news to most of you, but tomorrow night Whitesnake plays Irving Plaza. To me, this is monumental. It leaves me breathless and excited and, ultimately, crestfallen because I cannot find one single living soul to attend this night of guitar-driven innuendo and pageantry with me.

After first hearing of this show and sending out my giddy emails to certain people that have since been forgiven for their rather curt and flippant refusals, I stowed my dreams of seeing David Coverdale parade around as though he still was sexually viable somewhere deep inside my vault of hair metal dreams perpetually deferred.

And then…this weekend, that vault came unhinged by an encounter with a bartender at Brooklyn’s Gutter, the bar/bowling alley hybrid with well-seasoned Bloody Marys that allow for the most intense intoxication in the least amount of time. By the time I reached my high score of the day (163), I was on my third and feeling particularly enthused about most anything. Prior to this, the bartender and I started chatting about Judas Priest’s later years and then I informed him that Metallica were “pussies”, especially that “New Age wimp, Kirk Hammett.” I think this was when he decided I was good people. Most metal fans just need to sniff out a sense of loyalty and an intimation of heated passion about one of the Big 4 (Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer) before they decide that you are one of them. There is rarely snobbery in evidence and I’ve never had to participate in a game of dick swingin’ in order for my opinions to be respected, which is somewhat surprising considering heavy metal is über-masculine with its perverse üse of ümlauts, loaded references to both male and female anatomy, and a massive archive of backstage tales that would make Caligula blush.

Anyway, by my fourth Bloody Mary, I had been invited to attend Whitesnake with this super amiable bartender and his wife. We started discussing the ouevre of Whitesnake and he might have mentioned his favorite songs, but I was too preoccupied with whether or not I would allow my inebriated state to actually coerce me into divulging mine. And I did. As I’ve mentioned before, “Is This Love?” is my most beloved of their catalog. Hell, it’s one of my favorite songs of all time. I listen to it at least once a day and have done so for several years. To most “real” metal fans, this is probably considered obscene. But I also had been operating under the assumption that even admitting to liking Whitesnake was somewhat of a faux pas—that is, if metal fans were to abide by any social norms. In this instance, I did not lose any points. This dude smiled and nodded enthusiastically and then we talked a bit about “Slide It In” and “Bad Boys” before I got sidetracked by the many conversations I was having with other friends about several other topics for which I expressed equal zeal.

And then there it was: that wickedly sultry intro that sounds like a wall of electric strings blown through a gigantic fan, tossing everyone’s hair and hearts about in a sexy, brooding fashion. To be honest,it also sounds a bit like the intro to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” My heart skipped a beat and I stood there frozen. In this neighborhood bar, in the late afternoon, I was hearing one of my favorite songs in the world. The bartender winked. There was a kinship formed, a moment of understanding shared. And then Coverdale began to sing and I squealed, dropping my umbrella in a clumsy fashion and awkwardly bending down to retrieve it. But still, in that brief moment, I felt as effortlessly awesome as Coverdale himself.

I guess the point of this tale is a) The next best thing to seeing Whitesnake live is hearing one of their hits blasted at full volume as a friendly dedication to your’s truly; b) by rehashing this experience, I hope to not harbor too much resentment towards those fools who refuse to attend the “still of the night” my dreams came true; and c) it’s probably best to not join a couple of married strangers to watch a loud and raunchy performance of songs called “Slide It In” and “Slow n Easy”, right?