After we had had a nice day of partying like it was 1699 Dad and mom got into the blue race car and went to a wedding. Ross and i, accompanied by Jackie the Merch girl (click here to learn more about her) decided to make a trek to the wastelands of Milwaukee and attend the Wisconsin State Fair.
When we got inside the first order of business was to find and injest as many fried things on sticks as we could get our grubby hands on. We quickly realized two things. 1) that fried cheese on a stick is in fact as good as it sounds and 2) playing "spot the mullett" in this crowd would be a wasted effort since you could barely turn around without getting a sensory mullett overload. Our brians shut down temporarily and later worked out a way to tune out the mullets and thereby make our trip through the grounds that much safer for our mental well-being.
Shortly after our visual receptors came back on we came across a sign that said "EVERCLEAR CONCERT TONIGHT". I shrugged since i only knew one or two Everclear songs and wasn't really in any particular hurry to deviate from my path towards the Funnel Cake stand. Ross was in a similar ambivalent mood but Jackie seemed excited. Ross asked the carny manning the entrance how much tickets were and the carny said "free but you have to get them over there", indicating a nearby kiosk. Ross pushed his way through the mullets and grabbed three tickets and passed them out to us.
Grabbing a corn dog and a lemonade we entered the open-air venue and found that it was raining near the stage. we were not to be deterred (hell, i put up with sub-zero temperatures and other issues going to shows, so a little rain wasn't really going to stop us now was it?)
After a long hour or so we were finally allowed to go to the seating area (a few scattered folding chairs). We settled in and a radio DJ came out on stage to open the show. Feeding off the energy of the crowd (not a lot) i decided that no matter what the guy said, it was amazing and deserved cheers. It went something like this:
DJ: Hello Milwaukee!and so on.
ROB: HE KNOWS WHERE WE ARE! WOO!
DJ: I'm Stamos from KBLAH (i don't know the actual station)
ROB: HE HAS A JOB! WOO!
DJ: Before Everclear comes out (rest of crowd cheers) we have a few rules
ROB: ALRIGHT RULES! WOO!
Everclear eventually came out and started the show off with "Wonderful", one of the two songs i knew i knew. I sang along with the words i knew and sort of marveled at how Art Alexakis really didn't sound much like he did on the albums. maybe it's just the sound man i thought.
As the show wound on it seemed to suprise me and Ross that there really wasn't a lot of stage presence going on up there. He made the comment that he had seen better movement and crowd interaction at basement punk shows in high school. Having been at a few of these shows myself, i agreed. We amused ourselves by making jokes at the band's expense and passing notes. One that i wrote on the back of my ticket seemed to sum it up. Wow, it's like 311 got up on stage and played a bunch of Everclear songs!
about 30 minutes into the set Jackie leaned over to Ross and said "we can go now if you want." Ross and i felt really bad. Yeah we thought the show sucked but we weren't really fans when we came in. Jackie had been and we felt like we had ruined it for her. Ross asked her if we were walking out because he and i were being assholes. Jackie said "No, you guys are always assholes. the show just sucked."
On the way out of the fairgrounds we passed by several food stands that were closing up for the night. Ross suddenly jumped, pointed and said "OH MAN!"
I looked and said "no way!"
"Dude, we have to!"
so that's how we ended up eating a fried Twinkee in the middle of Milwaukee on a saturday night. Driving home we reflected on the evening and felt that the show wasn't a total bust since we really hadn't paid for it and at least got to have several fried foods (both on and off sticks) throughout the evening. Hence the title "on getting what you paid for"