Smells Like Teen...something

(March 25, 2006)

Today I went to Harpers Ferry for a high school battle of the bands. OH my sweet lord. Four hundred teenagers and their parents! In their squealing, fidgety midst I was reminded immediately of my own high school self, and the basketball games, fireworks displays and holiday bazaars where adults were incidental and we kids ruled. OH we thought we were so cool.

The bands played twenty minute sets, but the real show was the teenagers that comprised 90% of the audience. I stood aside to watch them, knowing they wouldn't notice me watching. Kids that age don't "see" anyone over the age of twenty. I was safely hidden in plain sight. (A few of the fathers did try to chat me up though; the place was crawling with horny dads.)

Now, one thing I didn't realize when I was a teenager. A mob of high school kids moves and interacts so much differently than a mob of adults. First of all, they're constantly on the move. You get an audience of adults in a rock club and they'll leave whatever corner they've staked out to hit the bar, they'll go pee, they'll go outside to smoke. But that's about it. Kids? They don't "stake out" anywhere. They rove constantly back and forth, up to the front and back to the pool tables, inside and outside. Even when they stop walking around they remain moving in place -- jumping on each other's backs, fidgeting, trying to pick each other up, twirling.

It's EXHAUSTING to watch.

And not only do they constantly move. But they constantly move in tightly-formed clusters, particularly the girls. You can't see where one ends and the other begins. Because they look exactly like each other (same jeans, same belt, same T shirts, same hair) they resemble some kind of potted plant, limbs looping and intertwined with barely any daylight between their bodies.

And the smell. The whole place reeked of feet, bubblegum and something vaguely apple-scented.

The show was 1 - 5. I didn't stay all day, as I developed a raging headache. Not because of the bands, it was a sinus thing.

I did see this one band called Spiral Tide, who were surprisingly sophisticated. Drummer is only 15. Bass player rocks the 5 string. And they're not trying to be So Cal punk. It's like...edgy island music. Hm. I'm liking the Spiral Tide. I have a strong feeling they're the stoners in their high school.

The lead singer from another band was tonguing and fingering his girlfriend all during their set, though. It was pretty disgusting. Kiddie sleaze.