Time Warp-Horns Up 2003 Edition in A New Chapter

2003 was a big year for me.
We moved from New Jersey to Costa Rica for my father’s job.
It was a rough transition. I really loved my group of friends and I tried to keep it a secret for as long as possible. However, it eventually came out. My parents kinda let me go wild for a little bit and do whatever I wanted with them. I was in my prime as far as my heavy metal fandom went and man did I run with that.
I went to a festival which is probably worthy of multiple entries but I also went to a bad ass tour called The Metal Gods. It was headlined and organized by Rob Halford of Judas Priest. It was seen as a bit of a more elite competition to Ozzfest at the time. The premise was simple, grab a band from most metal genres and represent them: Immortal for Black Metal, Amon Amarth for Death Metal, Testament for Thrash metal, etc.
This show was happening in New York City tho. My dad wasn’t home and my mom couldn’t take me since she had to watch my brother and sister. So we did the next best thing: we went alone. Me and my best pal just got dropped off at the train station and we headed over to New York City. We were 14.
We lived close to New York and I used to go there a lot. I was familiar with most of the streets and knew how to get to places. I was mostly there for Amon Amarth and Immortal. Immortal rarely came to the US and this European bands hadn’t really made a splash here in the US too much yet. We found out that day that the show would actually be its last for the tour. Halford was big but he was no Ozzy..and the European bands were only popular with select crowds. Amon Amarth wouldn’t blow up for a couple of more years.

We met a Norwegian woman while waiting to get in. She was older than us, probably 40s. She claimed to know Immortal but who knows. She did speak Norwegian to the band a few times during their set. All the bands had been playing perfectly but Immortal did blow us away. hey just had an energy that was unmatched that night. They did release the performance on DVD down the road. When they finished, I was the only person in the front row with an Immortal shirt. When the set was over, the drummer handed me his drumsticks. Me playing the drums at the time, I almost had a heart attack.

We were next to a Japanese guy who was absolutely thrilled to be there. In between sets, he just chanted the names of his favorite bands. One of the roadies had a Slayer shirt, the shirt featured a smiley face with a bullet hole between its eyes. We were laughing about it. With a thick Japanese accent he said “Slayer..so fucking cute.” And we laughed for a good while.

A problem was coming. The last train to our town was leaving at around 12:00 AM. We wouldn’t be able to finish the show. We decided to leave the venue at 11:30ish to give us some time to walk to Penn Station. As we were leaving, someone tried to steal my drumsticks. I was a teen and as an adult..it baffles me to think someone would try to take them. Ironically, they weren’t able to pull them from my hands.

As I said earlier, I knew the city quite well but nighttime was a different beast. We were offered drugs multiple times, got propositioned by prostitutes, and I even got insulted by a bouncer for no reason. I had long hair at the time. We walked past some jazz club and some bouncer said “hey faggot boy, I bet you’re not good enough with those drumsticks to play here. fuck you.” okay dude.

It was getting close to 12 and we started running. When we got to Penn Station I saw a group of women in their 20s. They were talking and they all looked beautiful. I was so distracted that I almost hit a wall. The train was there and just like in the movies we did one of those jump things. There weren’t enough seats for us to sit together but we could still see each other from a distance. Out of breath we just kept looking at each other shaking our heads, smiling, moving our lips to say “we fucking made it.”

This is probably one of my best teenage memories. It was eventful, exciting, and dangerous. A pale contrast to my present day opinion of New York and New Yorkers. Back then, the city was exciting. I grew up there and have amazing memories from that time. I have traveled the world and I guess I didn’t realize how lucky I was. I have met so many people that have said stuff like wow that was my dream, I can’t believe it, etc.

My friends and I were a bunch of privileged misfits and we didn’t even know it.

See you later space cowboy.

Last updated May 09, 2024