My First Punk Rock Concert – Board as Usual '96
There are certain moments in life that you never forget. The obvious choices are your first kiss, the first time you had, likely, awkward sex, the day you got married, or, more importantly, the first Punk Rock concert you attended.
My first happened in nineteen hundred and ninety six: the “Board as Usual” concert held at the now long defunct Mammoth Event Center in downtown Denver. Upon telling my mother about my desire to attend said concert she informed me she used to go watch indoor volleyball matches there “in her day.”
The Mammoth was at the end of it's life and a year or two later would be remodeled, and rebranded as the Denver version of the Fillmore Auditorium, which it remains to this day. I always preferred the Mammoth with all its dark corners, general dankness, and sweaty, stale, gymnasium vibe.
Board as Usual was a combination celebration of both punk and skateboarding culture, the two things that consumed my every waking moment by that time in the nineteen hundred and nineties. Inspired by the massively popular Vans Warped Tour, the preeminent nineteen nineties skateboarding/punk rocking traveling summer outdoor festival, Board as Usual sought to capture that same vibe, albeit indoors, and with no actual skateboarding, just bands.
The lineup consisted of The Pharcyde, a decidedly not Punk Rock band, but a Hip Hop one, The O.C. Supertones, and The Mudsharks, two bands I’d never heard of and have never heard of since, and the bands my teenage self was most excited to see, Bouncing Souls, Ten Foot Pole, Screw 32, Five Iron Frenzy, Buck-O-Nine, and the legendary Descendents. A raucous collection of Skate Punk and Ska Punk, which was on the cusp of taking over the world.
How could I fucking miss this?
I informed my fellow skateboarding friend and punk enthusiast Ratt, a moniker that was shortened from “Ratboy,” and then extended by one “t” to match the Misfits poor spelling in the lyrics of their song “Rat Fink.” It was far better than his original nickname “Crap Wagon,” named thusly because he had a Radio Flyer red wagon in his room that was full of random shit.
He was keen on going. A plan was hatched.
Being as we were merely 14 years of age and unable to get to the venue “somewhere downtown” by our own accord, securing permission, and a ride, from the parents was integral to the plan.
Surprisingly, and without even holding me captive for hours to grill me about the bands playing and what kind of music it was or if we’d be participating in any drug-fueled, satanic orgies, my folks agreed, provided we could secure a responsible ride to and from the concert because my father was “not driving downtown,” firmly entrenched in his battle with city traffic, one that he wages to this day despite having moved hours away to the western slope of the state in a town with one traffic light.
Ratt’s mother valiantly agreed to provide transportation both ways. She was a very tolerant woman, whom I later found out when I was an adult, was endlessly amused by my boyhood shenanigans where they pertained to her son. Even the more outlandish ones like spending school lunch periods at their house eating all their bologna, or constantly fussing with his father’s meticulously placed collection of doodads and what nots, a crime that resulted in what Ratt told me was having to retrieve for his father a “switch” from the backyard. I never believed that, though, his father was a severely unhumorous man whose disdain for me equalled his wife’s enthrallment.
The day arrived and Ratt’s mother chauffeured us downtown. On the way she took us on the scenic tour of Denver to point out all the places she’d been since they moved to Denver years ago, something I found endlessly amusing but Ratt did not, panicked that we were going to miss the entirety of the concert. I’m certain that after witnessing his reaction to our memory lane detour she was doing it on purpose.
Finally, we arrived at the Mammoth, hurled ourselves from the car and ran to the entrance in massive anticipation but not really knowing what to expect. This was, after all our first punk rock concert. From what I’d been mainlining via the late-night, local public access music video show “Punk TV,” I’d been expecting a giant sea of punk rockers lost in an endless, swarming mosh pit, occasionally spitting a body up on top of the roiling mass for air.
It wasn’t that far off, albeit smaller in scale than what my fantasy had led me to believe.
Knowing myself and Ratt to be somewhat timid in nature, I expected we would coy little cats and tiptoe around all the elder punks, trying not to be in anybody’s way, but was surprised to find us, likely overcome by the whole vibe of the place, throwing ourselves with careless abandon into the writhing masses of concert-goers, bouncing off sweaty, stinky strangers, for five hours. Thinking of that now makes my back instantly ache and fills me with an urge to go to bed early tonight and watch “The Golden Girls.”
This is how the evening progressed, slamming into one another, screaming punk anthems at the top of our lungs, and reveling in all of its glory. It never occurred to me to stop, take a break, and get water. I was here, at a capital “p” Punk capital “r” Rock show. My first Punk Rock show, not to be my last, and I never, ever, wanted it to end.
It ended for us promptly at 10pm, the predetermined, and agreed upon hour Ratt’s mother would be waiting for us outside the Mammoth. As the Descendents wrapped their set consisting of numerous songs from their then brand new, now classic, album “Everything Sucks,” I glanced at my Burger King, Congo movie, tie-in wrist watch, the punk watch around, and peeped the time: almost ten o’clock. We’d miss Buck-O-Nine. No big deal.
On the way out I stopped to purchase a Screw 32 shirt. I’d wear this shirt for years to come, eventually, and fashionably, removing the sleeves because if there’s one thing teenage punk/skaters need is exposed and accessible armpits.
True to her word, Ratt’s mother and her blue Plymouth Sundance were waiting us. Smiling ear to ear, glistening with sweat, clutching my new Screw 32 shirt, I beamed with exhilaration.
“How was the concert,” she asked.
“Amazing,” I said, because it absolutely was.