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| "Make sure you're hammered before you go in ..."
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| Rocking with the beer-zilla, desperately rooting for cheese puffs, and psyched for "Metackala" ...
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| Chillin' with the ladies by the Camaro hatchback, and administering the beatdown ...
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-- by Joe D'Angelo, with additional reporting by Gideon Yago
Like $5 bottles of water and vendors hawking toe rings, overzealous party animals are fixtures at every summer festival.
We've all seen them at the Warped Tour, Ozzfest, Lollapalooza, Rock the Mic or similar multi-band festivals. Often sunburned bright red from a few hours of shirtless tailgating, they're easy to spot. Some sit on a curb, weary and wasted. A number ramble incoherently about whom they want to see. Many vomit.
Some festival freaks get so consumed with consuming at the tailgate party that they never see the concert they bought tickets for. While their friends are on their feet getting their rock on, these hapless souls are on the floor lying in their own mess, or left outside the venue to sleep it off in the backseat.
Despite the obvious pratfalls, the rite of the pre-party has hardly diminished. We visited some tailgaters recently to check out the damage and see who partied themselves right out of the show. ...
"Tailgating parties are the whole thing about concerts," slurred bead-wearing, bongo drum-toting Keith, 21, at the Summer Sanitarium Tour stop in East Rutherford, New Jersey. "You gotta party before the concert and make sure you're hammered before you go in."
With a trunk full of beer and booze, including bottles of rum, vodka and bourbon, Ryan, 16, from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and his six friends were well on their way to doing just that eight hours before Metallica hit the stage. The mostly underage revelers considered themselves veterans of the pre-show party set, Ryan explained between shots of a syrupy concoction of Jägermeister, Malibu rum and pineapple juice. At last year's Ozzfest, his crew got the party started well before noon with a breakfast consisting of fresh watermelon that had been steeped in vodka for the past 36 hours. That was followed by espresso spiked with Sambuca. Half of the party endured until the headliners hit their last note, the other half were tossed out for being disorderly, only to worsen their condition back at the car.
Despite the spotty showing last summer, they were "psyched as all hell" to see Metallica and were confident they'd make it to the end of the night.
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Photo: MTV News
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