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For those about to rock, we salute you

I went to see this band of a friend of a friend of a friend of mine on Friday and the abundance of "of a's" gave me a pretty good indication of what I was to encounter there. My expectations were fulfilled but there was no way that I could have prepared myself for just how fulfilled they became.

At 9 p.m. on Friday I found myself smack dab in the middle of a butt rock bar.

I haven't seen so many tight jeans since casual night at the Sumo wrestlers social club - and don't ask me why I was there because you might not like the answer. The only difference was that the Sumos wore bigger jeans and they had the fashion sense not to stonewash them before they took them out in public.

And the hair at this place. The hair was big. If you were alive in the '80s you know just how big hair can get and I think that the 10 years these folks spent buried under a rock was entirely dedicated to the science of making hair even bigger.

The band actually turned out to be halfway decent (that's half empty not half full), especially considering they looked like a cross between Poison, Ugly Kid Joe, and the kids that used to play Dungeons & Dragons at lunch in high school.

While they had the same flavor as the butt rock bands of the '80s, it was much smoother and the aftertaste was far less bitter. They must have mellowed in their old age.

Normally I would have been completely put off by such a weak display from a group of long hairs like these, with their sleeveless T-shirts and black socks with high tops, especially since they were covering James Taylor and the Beatles. They saved the day though with there seemingly endless supply of dick jokes and come-ons to the waitress in the halter top and by covering a Rollins Band song.

Their original stuff was mostly bland and I was surprised at the amount of people in the crowd who knew all the words. Looking around, I suddenly felt like I was in that bar from Wayne's World and there was so much headbanging I kept expecting Matt Pinfield to come out and tell me about the musical influences on the bass lines when what I really want him to tell me is why in the hell I've ever heard of him.

The only thing I could think about as I stared wide-eyed at the group of people that were rocking out in front of me was: where did you people come from? I finally realized that the majority of them were in their early 30s and they were trying desperately to hold on to their youth. They used to be teenyboppers and now they're facing the inevitable spiral towards mid-life and are desperately clinging to the last thing that they truly believed was hip.

I can't decide whether to respect them or pity them.

All I know for certain is that I'm terrified that 10 years from now, I'm going to go to a bar full of people my own age and be subjected to the hell of a Matchbox 20 cover band. Agony. Oh... and also that the new telnet sucks.

Zack Armstrong is a creative writing senior

He can be reached at editor@wildcat.arizona.edu