Sunburnt and gatvol in the forest of legs

Twelve years I been waiting!
Hey? Since that time in Craig’s room, when he was staying in that pozzie just off the garage.
Played me Ride The Lighting, Master Of Puppets and …And Justice For All in one sitting. That was metal, bru.
The Black Album was lame compared to all that.
Lame, lame, lame.
No bru, Battery is the tune. “Smashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me. Cannot stop the ba-ter-ry! Battery!”
That’s when I worked out why all those okes had put Metallica logos on their satchels at school.
Started growing my hair that same night. Didn’t cut it for four years – till it started going bald on the sides, then went for a bit of a fringe. Like a mullet-y thing.
Taped all the okes’ albums that night as well. Lank hard to get in those days. Had to tape them. Kill ‘Em All on one side and then Garage Days on the other. Like that.
Bought the albums after that. Bought Load. Bought Reload. Bought St Anger. Bought the Binge And Purge live box set. Learnt all the words to all the songs. Even bought the Some Kind Of Monster DVD with bonus disc.
So I make out the whole story. Started in San Francisco with Cliff Burton on bass. Then Cliff got killed in a bus crash while they were touring Europe. Jason Newsted came and jolled. That’s when Craig went and checked them at Donington.
The ou caught one of James’s picks when he threw it into the pit. Still framed the thing and put it up in his room when he came back. Oke wouldn’t shut up about it for years.
Wore that Donington concert shirt till it went grey.
Meanwhile I never got to check them.
Till now.
Now I spent my R550, spent my two hours in the traffic jam and I’m in the bladdy stadium ready to check fuckin’ Metallica after 12 years. Twelve years, bru!
In my St Anger shirt, frying like a chip in the middle of Supersport Park. Yiss it’s hot.
You can’t get a wettie for any money and the babe’s not digging it less. I queue for two hours for four beers. Then they close the bar.
I manage to get us a couple of melting King Cones and a bag of peanuts at about two o’clock. ‘Tallica’s only on at 10pm. S’gonna be a long day.
We stand for three hours, through Carstens, Prime Circle, Simple Plan and The Rasmus.
We should have drank some water before we came. The fuckers wouldn’t even have let us bring any in.
Start feeling a bit faint during Roger Goode on the electronica stage, so I have a lie-down on the grass bank. Getting dark, but it’s still four hours to Metallica. The babe goes to find me some water, comes back with half of some oke’s Fanta.
The sugar gets me up again and I make it back to the rock stage, just in time for Seether’s set. They got too many bands playing at this thing. Too many bands to get through.
Seether rocks, but we just stand and watch. Wanna save a bit of energy for the main gig. Haven’t chowed in ages now, and there’s no sign of the food vendors any more.
They disappeared when ous started abusing them for running out of stock.
Yiss, I’m skraal, hey. Stomach’s growling, hey. And there’s no place to sit. It’s just so full.
Now it’s still Collective Soul for a hour. Seem to recognise lank of their songs.
Sunburnt, hey. Feeling a bit flushed.
If I faint now, bru. If I faint now…
Twelve years. I waited twelve years for this.
My legs give out a little and the babe asks if I’m okay.
I scheme I just gotta sit down for a bit. Park off on my haunches in the forest of legs.
Can hear Collective Soul jol ten songs that sound exactly the same. Then there’s a power failure during their last song. They have to start over again. And then there’s gonna be half an hour changeover between bands.
I stand up for a bit and try have a little trap around to get the blood flowing. Everyone else is just standing there, sunburnt and gatvol staring at the stage, scheming, “Come on. Play. It’s been years.”
I sit down between the girlfriend’s legs and have a little kip sitting up. Tune her, “Just kick me when it starts.”