poster 29 dillinger escape plan 2004

april 15th, originally uploaded by rebecca ann rakstad.

Kyle Reynolds
It was a long day of picking up dog and cat shit at the shelter. My two best friends picked me up and we headed straight for the Fireside. No booze or dope for the night but I didn’t even care, I was just happy to get the hell out of work. We arrived to the show and there was already a huge line. My friends’ mom let us borrow her credit card to get tickets online so we didn’t have to worry about it selling out. SWEET! We got in and soon Planes Mistaken For Stars hit the stage. Great name but what a shitty band! A pit had already started. It was going to be a long night. Next up was Decahedron, who was so much better. At the end of their set they picked up two laptops, smashed them and talked about how technology was destroying music. They threw the broken pieces into the audience, who started smashing them even more. A kid right behind me was waving a big piece around until a bouncer came and kicked him out. What a fucking dickhead! By then the heat was starting to get to me. It had to have been 100 degrees in there. It was sold out and everywhere I looked someone was smoking a cigarette. The next band was The Bronx, who totally fucking slayed everyone’s faces off. The kids went wild! Everyone was dancing and going nuts. After one of the songs the singer talked about taking a piss and seeing a fly in the bathroom. He wondered “what the fuck are you doing in the dirty ass Fireside Bowl bathroom when there are hundreds of bbq’s going down outside.” He then dedicated the next song to the fly. Fucking awesome! The rest of the set was totally amazing. They finished and I made my way up to the front to see who I came to see, The Dillinger Escape Plan. They hit the stage and opened with Panasonic Youth, a new song. They sounded like how a riot looks. The kids went fucking crazy! I had never seen anything like it. My life was changed forever. I feared for my life that night. They put danger back into Rock n’ Roll that night (which is missing a lot these days but to me is a main part of rock). The guitar player was swinging his guitar around so much that he sliced a kids face open. He had blood dripping down his face. He turned to me and said, “this is the best night of my life!” wow, it felt so good to be alive. The band just kept tearing through song after song. The guitar player ripped down a tile from the ceiling with his pointy guitar head. I don’t know how my body was surviving all the heat. My friend yelled out to me “it’s so hot in here my eye lids are sweating.” I realized that mine were too. I didn’t even think that was possible and too this day I haven’t experience that again. The band did an encore and I knew that I had just seen the best show in my life. I felt completely changed. After all these years of going to show I can honestly say that I have only seen one better show than that. But that’s a whole other band and a whole different all ages venue. That will be shut down probably by the time you’re reading this. Thanks for all the wonderful memories mister Fireside Bowl. R.I.P.