Last Saturday night, I had the pleasure of going to see the legendary Little Richard at the Harrah's Plaza. I have to give Harrah's credit here -- it was one helluva show, and the price was wonderful. (It was FREE!) The Plaza, by the way, is a great addition to downtown Reno, and I hope it stays there.
But despite the fact that the Plaza was wonderful and Little Richard was going "WOOOOOOOOOO!" better than he ever has, the concert was not without its flaws -- the biggest flaw being the crowd.
Do not get me wrong; I am not complaining. (There's a first time for everything. --Ed.) Seeing as the concert was well-publicized and free, a crowd was to be expected. This issue was further complicated by the fact that there was very little seating, meaning almost everybody was standing up, close together, kind of like cattle being herded to ... well, go and see a Little Richard concert. (Cows go crazy with joy when he goes WOOOOOOOOOOO!) For the most part, everyone was very polite and proper; however, some people simply should have been shot considering some of the things they did.
As a public service, here is a short list that I have compiled of things NOT to do if you are in a large crowd:
1. Do not smoke; if you have to smoke, do not smoke cigars or pipes. At one point, some massive cretin jerk decided to light up a stogie that smelled like someone was burning Shaquille O'Neal's dirty laundry. It smelled so bad that we moved, even though the crowd was so tightly packed that we had to technically break several laws of physics to do so. Then, when we got far enough away from the cigar-ass smell, a guy next to us lit up a pipe. This, arguably, smelled even worse. My friends stopped me from take this pipe from him and shoving it up his Little Richard, but I sure wanted to.
2. If you are in a tightly packed crowd, put your elbows away. Some man who was standing behind me and to my left decided to stand there with his hands on his hips, as if he were Superman and he had been asked to strike a pose. He kept elbowing me in the side; when I looked at him, he just stared ahead as if he was receiving an important message from the mother ship. I suspect that he felt he'd receive the transmission better if he put out his elbows, kind of like an antenna on top of a television set. He finally went away, probably after he finished receiving the mother ship's message. Who knows?
3. If you are in a crowd watching Little Richard (WOOOOOOOOOO!), do not try to videotape him. I am not making this up: There were signs up Saturday night telling people that video cameras were not allowed; people were even checking for them at the entrances to the Plaza. But some moron apparently snuck one in; Little Richard noticed this in mid-WOOOOOO! and -- with the band playing, in the middle of song -- directed security to where the moron was. This apparently didn't work; a song or two later, Little Richard stopped, mid-number, and refused to sing until the camera was taken away. While I understand Little Richard's concerns -- he and other classic rock n' roll-era performers lost a ton of money from the sales of unauthorized recordings -- the whole scene was odd. I hope they took the moron's camera away and kicked him off the premises -- or even worse, stuck him between the guy with the cigar and the dude with the pipe.
4. If you have a rear end the size of Cleveland, watch what you do with it. I was having a good old time at one point, getting down and trying unsuccessfully to go WOOOOOOOOO! myself, when I was blindsided and almost knocked to the ground by what felt like a squishy battering ram hitting the side of my thigh. In reality, it was the enormous butt of a short woman who was meandering through the crowd. Seriously -- she nailed me hard with her backside, and it takes a lot (6'2", 230 pounds) to almost knock me down. (Before I get angry letters, let me say that I am in no way criticizing this woman, or anyone, for that matter, for packing around a pronounced posterior; she just needs to be careful when maneuvering the thing. This really happened, and I am just telling the truth).
In any case, I had a great time at the concert -- although it would have been better had these crowd-etiquette tips been followed. I had just so much fun, as a matter if fact, I'm going to go and practice my WOOOOOOOOO!
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who has absolutely no posterior whatsoever, although you probably didn't need to know that. His column (Jimmy's, not his posterior's) column appears here Tuesdays, and an archive of his columns can be found at http://geocities.datacellar.net/jiboegle.