(note: the names and facts have either been altered or made up to protect the innocent; do not try this)

I had just finished catching Jigglypuff on my gameboy when suddenly I looked up at my computer screen. "What in the name of Buh Buh Ray Dudley??" I exclaimed. There, in a disgusting green and blue mix of colors, were the latest confirmed tour dates of Kittie, major deities of some pagan heavy metal religion. Upon inspection, I found that they were going to play the House of Blues down on Sunset Boulevard, a mere forty-six miles from my house.

So, after calling a few friends of mine and securing a car to get down there in, I went down to the Ticketmaster office at my local Tower Records. I made the mistake of going on a Tuesday, when all the new albums came out. With the willpower of the mighty lion, I walked through the music section. "Willpower," I screamed! Those shiny, new albums were trying to draw me in like Darth Vader at an Ewok convention. But I pressed on! And finally made it.

After securing the tickets from a guy named "Bill," an overtly homosexual midget with three piercings in his nose, I walked from the store, tickets in the air, waving them like a Statue of Liberty made of Olympic gold!

But, then, tragedy struck: I realized I had to wait a few weeks until the day of the concert! Oh, how fate can be cruel! I wept. I wept like a little girl with cooties.

Luckily, however, I discovered a law of science: Sleeping all day, every day, makes time pass by very quickly. Sure, I missed every episode of WWF Monday Night Raw. Okay, so the weeks of school that I missed severely impacted my grades. BUT THIS IS KITTIE!!!!! And, by golly, it was worth it.

On the day of the concert, I hopped in a broken down Toyota and rode down to Sunset with two guys I met in a David Bowie chat room. On the way, we spat on as many cars as we could and drove away as fast as possible. 'Twas a fun game, even though I lost.

We were supposed to meet two other guys at Sunset, but the driver of the two got arrested for drunkenly shooting his pellet gun at crows (I still have the two extra tickets). So that sucked. But we did buy coffee at the Hustler restaurant. So that was cool (you don't even have to be 18 to get in, which was a relief to me). Unfortunately, their food is limited to cookies and Jell-o looking fudge.

So we ate real food at some cajun restaurant. I had to poo twice because of it.

By now, it was raining. But we decided to walk to the House of Blues since we found a really cheap parking lot. First, we went the wrong direction and ended up seven blocks away. Keep in mind that one block on Sunset is the equivalent to four normal residential blocks. So that sucked. But we did talk to a crazy homeless guy who was standing outside HoB. He wanted us to buy tickets to the resurrection of Jesus, which would take place in the HoB the following week. We gave him a quarter. So that was cool.

Once inside, we took a secure standing place right behind the pit. I was scared that I was going to get killed in all the moshing, as I only weigh 125 lbs yet am 5'11". But still, we had a good view of the stage. So that was cool.

The second we got our place, Papa Roach opened up with their set. It ruled. However, in Los Angeles, there's a golden rule that every band should know: If you're not the headlining act, you automatically suck. That's everyone elses rule, not mine. The exception is this: If you sound EXACTLY like the opening act, you're half-way good. The guys I was with and I really liked Papa Roach. There was about three other people in the entire place that shared our view. Which isn't too surprising, since 80% of the people there were just trying "to be seen" and score music industry hook-ups.

But, yeah, Papa Roach kicked some serious ass. The drummer was hitting so hard that he broke the foot peddle during the middle of a song. Which kind of sucked because you could tell it was Mercedes' drum kit (it had the bear on it). The elad singer was getting angry and yelling at the crowd to start moshing. They just stood there and gave him the finger. I hate L.A.

After that, one of the guys I was with went over and peaked behind the curtain as Kittie were setting up. He came back saying, "I saw some girl with red hair and, man, was she hot!" Since neither of them had heard of Kittie before, I preceded to tell them my opinion of Kittie. I don't remember what I said exactly, but even I was scared that I might stalk them. Some guy overheard me and said something like, "You'll never meet them, though. You're an ugly loser." That sucked. But he was right. So it didn't suck too much. I then shut up.

But when the curtain opened and Kittie appeared, I was happy again. During the first song, I was jumping around and headbanging. Now, I had been feeling a little sick for the past week and all that jumping didn't do me any good. My buddy noticed this and quoted Hunter S. Thompson, "Hey, man, that waitress over there is having sex with two polar bears."

"Don't tell me stuff like that," I replied. I don't know how fast my head was reeling, but when the waitress walked by I asked her, "Excuse me, miss how much do they pay you to make love to the bears?" Only not as polite. I then wound up with twenty dollars worth of coca-cola on my head.

Sick, dizzy, and stinking of coca-cola and rain, I lost sense of everything and anything. Except the music. Which was so loud is was pounding my skull like a jackhammer on a watermellon. So I did what any 17-year-old virgin would do: I puked on the guy that called me ugly.

Then, I ran. I ran so far away. Yeah, I ran. I ran all night and day.

I finally lost him by hiding behind two lesbian goths who looked like something from a Neil Gaiman comic. Fearing he might find me, I made my way into the mosh pit. For some reason, I felt like stage diving. So I moshed up to the barrier.

Now, there are intricate rules for stage diving. Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a concert security guard. Your average fan will see them and immediately stay away. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the security guard heart. After successfully faking being thrown over the railing, jump up on stage as soon as they help you up. Make them chase you, they will follow. Also, put your arm out as if your signaling to make a left turn. It tells them that you're just looking for a proper place to get off the stage. It might take them a while to realize you're going to make a five foot leap at only two, maybe three miles per hour with only three feet to accelerate. Race with them, it keeps them on their toes.

I figured I could dance and run around the stage for a good twenty minutes before they caught up to me. Then, after stage diving and crowd surfing to victory, I could watch the rest of the show from my spot, a hero to all.

However, reality soon interjected and as soon as I leaned against the railing, a guard pushed me back into the mosh pit. Thwarted and dejected, I moshed back to my spot. As I arrived, I found that the fiend had ripped my flannel shirt. "Cur!" I shouted at him.

As something about getting spanked boomed over the house amps, I noticed our party had increased by one. Some doe-eyed, scraggly-haired, 4-foot girl in a two-bit Barbra Striesand t-shirt was standing with my buddies. She was an obvious Mormon, a Jesus freak, and a Richard Simmons fan all rolled into one.

"This is Lucy," one of them said. "I met her near the bathroom. She makes her own Striesand t-shirts by hand. She was hypnotised by her nose and has made over three hundred t-shirts."

I pulled him aside and told him, "You fool! I know why you brought her heere. And they'll send you to the gas chamber for it. Even if you managed to be dead before they caught you, they'd still drag your corpse back here and pump you full of electricity. After all, the House of Blues looks down on contemptual sodomy. She's gotta go."

He laughed and shook his head, "You've been in that mosh pit too long, man. But, all right, if she bugs you that much, I'll get rid of her."

He gave her twenty dollars and asked her to get him a Papa Roach t-shirt. The second she was handing the clerk the cash, we bolted to the other side of the House of Blues. We never saw her again. But we found a Papa Roach shirt in the parking lot later.

Kittie then launched into "Run Like Hell." It was the first time I'd ever heard the song and I was blown away. It was, by far, the greatest song of the night.

After the set, we were voting on whether to leave and look for Kittie outside. After reading so many stories on the internet about that happening, I was all for it. But we all decided that since it was raining, the chances of Kittie standing around outside were slim-to-none. Besides, we had just dried off from the earlier rain and didn't feel like getting wet and possibly missing Sevendust if Kittie weren't there. I knew this would be my only chance to see them. Oh, well. I can always meet them at Ozzfe . . . no, wait, the House of Blues WAS my only chance to meet them. DARN DARN DARN DARN DARN DARN DARN DARN DARN!!!!!!!!!!

But Kittie put on a hell of a show. It's the highlight of the new millenium for me.

Sevendust came on after that. They turned the volume up, which didn't help me any. Sevendust played mainly the same three songs in eight different versions each. They broke for "Walk" by Pantera and "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. It ruled.

On the way out, we got sampler cassettes for some Limp Bizkit rip-off bands. That sucked. But they also gave us a Slipknot sampler. Which was cool. We listened to it on the way home. However, driving along Sunset, we saw Lucy standing on the sidewalk. We all saw her at the same time and she saw us only seconds later. We gunned it down the street, Lucy chasing after us like something out of Terminator 2. The traffic was slightly heavy, so she managed to keep up with us for a good twelve miles, all the while screaming and waving at us. I held the Papa Roach t-shirt up to her and gave her a thumbs up. We made it to the a mountain road and managed to lose her. My driver friend decided to take up both lanes, weaving back and forth, slowing down to a crawl, acting like a complete maniac behind the wheel. The cars following us stayed a good ten feet away at all times. We stopped at a street light and when it turned green, we didn't move. Even the cars in the next lane didn't dare get in front of us.

We then got on the freeway at a raging 5 miles per hour. But sped up as soon as we saw none of the cars following us. It was a great night.