A 20th Anniversary Retrospective of My First Concert

One of the most bittersweet things about enjoying terrestrial radio is watching things change. I accept that certain DJs will grow old and retire. I accept that new music trends will replace what came before. However, I think there’s something to watching the demise of Southern California’s KROQ 106.7 that is especially painful. Most of the people I liked have jumped ship, run across the dial to other channels, and left behind an uninteresting, lesser version of itself. In doing research for this article, I’ve discovered that some things haven’t been altered in the slightest. The most prominent being their annual two-night event Almost Acoustic Christmas.

Growing up, KROQ was the “cool” music station. Nowhere else were you going to get a healthy variety of genres that might seem dangerous to the general public. There was punk, ska, metal, rap-rock, new wave, and everything in between. The DJs felt like curators that introduced you to worlds with many holding midday shows highlighting obscure and new works. I recognize that at a point it was all a bit corporate, but for a preteen getting their first taste of music as a greater indulgence, it was like manna from heaven. The songs were good. The DJs weren’t above innuendo humor and playfully inserting sound drops into the music. It was a fun place to be.

Short of being a subscriber, I was a consummate listener for years. Was The Kevin & Bean Show better than Mark & Brian? They were definitely more appealing. It’s where I first discovered Green Day’s “Jesus of Suburbia.” Every Christmas season, I would run over to Best Buy in an attempt to scoop up their limited edition Christmas albums that featured an impressive variety of artists.

Another thing that was great about December was their annual concert series Almost Acoustic Christmas. It’s far from an accurate title given that almost every band I’ve seen on that stage was plugged in. Instead, it was a collection of artists who were the least bit notable that year coming together for a fun hurrah. I first became aware of it around 2001. During that year, they broadcasted (on tape delay) the concert live over the radio. Given that the events were known for being rowdy, having artists like Blink-182 sing, “Happy Holidays, You Bastard” on terrestrial was not going to fly. They would eventually go completely online and it’s where I watched a lot of the performances on a mediocre bandwidth. While it can be argued that I haven’t been to that many concerts, I have seen at least a dozen KROQ events online and discovered groups that I otherwise would’ve ignored.

This was one of those in-demand events that you had to work fast for. Back before the internet became the ticket buying locale that it is now, I remember people having to line up in stores early with any hope of getting in. Throughout the week leading up to the sale date, they’d announce bands one by one with clever musical edits. Once it was sold out, you essentially had to sit beck and call by your radio waiting for those cues to call in and pray you were the right number caller. I never did this for a concert, but I did win Foo Fighters’ “In Your Honor” that way.

The Offspring

I preface my post with all of this because I want to suggest why KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas was such a big deal to 14-year-old me in 2003. Not only did it give you a cultural cache in Southern California, but it was a chance to see bands you loved. These were the biggest deals in rock music. Also, when you’ve never been to a concert, having this as your entry point meant it exposed you to the finest produced, most streamlined version of live music you’re likely to get. I’m not saying it would be the best, but your ears wouldn’t get even a minute to stop the ringing for six whole hours.

Whereas I’m sure most people can’t recall when their first concert was, I’m able to because of how well-documented everything is. While certain archival elements are missing (notably the marketing materials), I’m able to hop over to Getty Images and see pictures of every band that night. On YouTube, there’s still (blurry) footage of bands like A.F.I. and Linkin Park doing those numbers. If I really wanted to relive that night, I have ways that I wouldn’t for later shows. It’s a moment that spoiled me, setting the bar so high that I don’t think any concert has matched my experience that night.

So… how did it happen? Did I have an adult wait in line and wait to buy those super-expensive tickets? Actually, no. Did I call the station at the right time? Again… no. Then Thomas, you say, how did you get into Night 1 of Almost Acoustic Christmas? Well… it’s a great example of happenstance.

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When I was younger, my dad worked at a carnival business called Fun Services with a man named Omar. Given that I spent most hours outside of school dealing with the staff there, it was easy to call us “friends” in the loosest sense. Wherever possible, we did what any friend did and cut corners for others. 

In 2003, KROQ hosted their concert at Universal Amphitheater. This was located in Universal City, CA which may be better recognized for Universal City Walk and Universal Studios Theme Park. While those venues would remain, Universal Amphitheater would change ownership to Gibson Amphitheater before disappearing altogether. 

The story goes that Omar’s relative worked in the parking lot section of Universal City. One day he had a collision with an automobile that resulted in a settlement of him getting free tickets to any Universal Amphitheater event. To the best of my memory, Omar went to both nights of Almost Acoustic Christmas. For us, we were going to attend Night 1 for a few reasons. The most noteworthy was that it had the more appealing line-up. Sure, it meant that I would miss my coveted Blink-182 performance (which I wouldn’t get to for another eight years), but I figured there would be more chances.

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So here’s the thing. Not only did I get into the concert for free, but because of Omar’s relative, we were able to get into the pit. Entering the venue for the first time was splendid. It reminds me of that backdoor scene in Goodfellas (1991) where you flash your armband and with each section you watch as the security lets you pass. Soon you’re on the floor, free of the seats, looking at the drum kit and amps for the first performer. All of a sudden, you’re discovering a truth that you didn’t think would happen. This was real. I was going to see bands that I had only heard on CDs live.

As a group (led by my father and including my sister and a school friend), we wore Santa hats as an easy way to find ourselves if we were to get lost. By some luck, even as the mosh pits emerged, we never strayed too far away from each other. For close to six hours, we were there, watching the stages turn and another band emerging. A radio DJ might come out and do an introduction, even at one point perform “Bro Hymn” with Pennywise. Even then, it all blurred together and suddenly the next six hours of my life started.

To provide a throughline of the evening, I will list the bands in order of appearance: Thrice, The Distillers, Chevelle, Puddle of Mudd, Pennywise, P.O.D., A.F.I., The Offspring, Linkin Park

Thrice was the opening act. Unless you’ve been in that environment, you’re not prepared for the first blast of a live concert. The bass shakes your body. The guitars ring in your ears and you do everything to hear the singer over all of it. Being that close, you’re getting every sound colliding at once. Even the way the drum rattles overwhelmed me at that moment. I had no larger opinion of them as an act, but I give them credit for being a solid opener. They brought the energy and soon I was initiated. Welcome to live music. If I liked it enough, I could see another band in just a half hour.

Looking back at the line-up, I realize how much of a time capsule that was. Except for The Offspring (who headlined their 2023 concert), most of these bands have either disbanded or faded into obscurity. It was a different time for rock music, and I am grateful to have been there for it all. None of these performances necessarily stand out in pristine detail in my mind, but the following will be my attempt at recalling major events throughout that six-hour evening.

Brody Dalle

In 2003, I was finding my footing in punk music, which included a lot of Epitaph Records bands. At different times, four of these groups were on that label and were in heavy rotation on my playlist. In hindsight, I’m most grateful to have seen The Distillers because they were an awesome band that felt like an anomaly in punk music. Brody Dalle had a raspy voice, sporting a mohawk and fusing three-minute ditties with feminism. I’ll always love records like “Sing Sing Death House” where it felt like a wrecking ball of chaos. I would see them again the following year in Anaheim, CA at the short-lived alternative punk festival concert Holiday Havoc (along with The Offspring and Pennywise). All I can say is that each time they were a pure delight.

Around the time of Chevelle, I will choose to shift to where I was in the audience. Given that we were probably a few dozen people back, off-center (maybe we even swayed with the crowd), I was doing everything I could to see the stage. If there’s one thing that I hadn’t really prepared myself for, it was the idea that somebody would be standing behind me. It’s since become a comical story that my father shares, but as I think back to this event, I’m finally unsure if it was an ethical action on my end.

As I watched, there was a man who was bumping into me. It happened a few dozen times and it began to annoy me. Not knowing any better, I decided to push the man with both hands. While this created a kerfuffle, my father came to protect me and I said that he was pushing me. With a beer in hand, the man seemed agitated about the whole thing. We didn’t have a fight break out, but there was still concern for the rest of the evening that this “drunk man” would try to pick a fight with us. As we socialized with people around us, we found two guys who said they’d “take care” of him for us. 

Now, there is a chance that I was being pushed and provoked. However, I am currently of the mindset that maybe I was overreacting to what is essentially the sardines in a can effect of concerts. You have to accept that you will get touched. Things will get sweaty. People will get drunk and clumsy. It’s best to just ride everything out.

Which is to say that there’s nothing more fascinating than being at ground zero for a mosh pit. They seem so daunting when you talk about them, but depending on the machismo of the band, they’re just doofuses throwing their hands around and dancing around in a pit. I don’t think I’ve ever been near one that resulted in a fight. It’s mostly a unified circle where everyone lets out their purest energy. It’s silly and, for some reason, usually being done directly behind me so I miss seeing them. With that said, it’s slightly more welcomed for me than the crowd surfers, of whom I imagine falling on an unsuspecting party and ending up with a serious injury.

To get back to Chevelle. I didn’t think much of them going into the show. That lane of alt-rock was never my favorite genre. I will say that they were on the side of “surprising” me. I enjoyed what they were doing and went out to buy their record, which had a short shelf life. 

Puddle of Mudd was up next. At the time they were one of the bigger grunge-adjacent bands, currently releasing their second album “Life on Display” (which Rolling Stone Magazine gave 1 star). The singer, Wesley Scantlin had his arm in a cast. Because of how much my dad played “Come Clean,” I was very familiar with their catalog. What’s bizarre in hindsight is reading The Los Angeles Times the following Monday and discovering how much they compare Scantlin to Kurt Cobain simply for having a grumbly voice. It was a ridiculous notion then, given how disposable singles like “Control” and “She Hates Me” were (“Blurry” maybe fared better) and not exactly lyrically challenging. Were they good? Sure. However, I think discovering that Scantlin became an unlikable alcoholic in his later years who ruined his own concerts wasn’t the most surprising thing. I guess I should be lucky to have seen them before that downfall. Still, nothing says that this is an early 2000s concert more than Puddle of Mudd, which I find funny.

I’m not entirely sure where the modern discourse on Pennywise is. It feels like they get lobbed in with frat boy style punk that is about drinking and doing stupid pranks, though I’m not sure if it’s just because they were high-speed the entire time. They encouraged a party atmosphere and “Bro Hymn” remains one of the better punk songs to just let go long and have the audience sing in harmony. I’ll even admit that the bass lines were often a lot of fun and they had a welcoming camaraderie. They opened with a punk cover of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” (which The Los Angeles Times assures me was the only band to do a holiday cover) and ended with pulling a KROQ DJ onstage to sing “Bro Hymn.” If the worst that can be said is that they were fun and hyped up the audience, then I’ll say that it converted me into a fan who collected their back catalog during several trips to Second Spin.

Another storied performance from that night was P.O.D. The irony is that while they could be considered Christian rap-rock, my parents were initially against me buying “Satellite” because the name “Payable on Death” sounded scary. In all honesty, it’s a really good record and the big singles on it are still great (“Youth of the Nation” is a powerful number). However, I feel like I dropped off of them fairly quickly by their self-titled follow-up. I don’t know that I ever listened to it. All that I know is that even if they weren’t sluggish in any sense, they were the band I decided to declare boring.

There’s no way to prove how true this is, but at one point I really just leaned into that teenage antagonism. As the singer took a break in between songs, he wandered the stage. Sonny Sandoval looked out at the crowd in the direction of where I was. Given that I was wearing a Santa hat, I wanted to believe I stood out more than I did. My middle finger in the air timed perfectly with a reactionary comment of him calling out, “the college kid with no Christmas spirit.” I don’t know who else it could’ve been, but I took credit for it. Even if it would be another five years before I qualified as “college kid,” I decided that it was a fun moniker, especially at a holiday concert. 

The trio of headliners was in some respect less eventful but easily the best part of the evening. I want to say this was before I bought “Sing the Sorrow.” I had heard “Girls Not Grey” on the radio but didn’t think much of it. As a result, I was forced to just be wrapped up in my first exposure to a very special band. They were gothic, often depressing, but they sure knew how to be catchy. Davey Havok had a stage presence like no other, his long hair molding his face into somberness. It’s one of those moments where I wish that I knew the music because it seemed like everyone was into it, singing along and having a good time. Of all the performances that made me a convert, this would be high on the list.

I should provide a tangent and say that this A.F.I. performance may have had the longest immediate legs. By the following year, I would be in high school and meet a girl who was obsessed with the band. She has a tattoo of the rabbits on the “Decemberunderground” album cover. We went together to see Hunter Revenge, which was the guitarist’s side project. While we had a falling out, I do still miss her and think of her whenever A.F.I. comes up. There’s also a DVD of them performing live in Long Beach called “I Heard a Voice,” which is the closest I get to reliving that performance.

As I sit now, I want to say that The Offspring was the band of the night for me. I had gone to Hot Topic to buy a shirt with the “Conspiracy of One” logo on it. I was excited. Even if I remember their Holiday Havoc set better, there was something playful. I admired Dexter Holland, even writing a school paper on him at some point. According to The Los Angeles Times, their opener featured The USC Marching Band, which I honestly forgot about. Even if I’m less enamored with them now, there is something about being young and really into that loud, rebellious period of The Offspring that fuels your soul. They were having a whole hootenanny that night, even bringing in a backup singer for that one line in “Come Out and Play.” By that point, the night was a swirl of emotion. There’s a reason they became one of the biggest pop-punk bands out of the 90s. Noodles knew how to write a hook. Wish they still did.

It is with some regret in hindsight that we didn’t make it through Linkin Park. For one thing, I don’t think I was interested in them at the time. Given that they were the closer, we contemplated whether it was best to stay and risk hours getting out of the parking lot or just leave early and beat traffic. I’m confident we saw 20 minutes of it, but by then I was so exhausted from over five hours of standing on my feet with loud music being pumped into my ears. I needed a break. It would take me a few days to properly recover.

Probably the one thing I consider in light of Chester Bennington’s suicide is how fortunate I was to have seen that band at their peak (circa “In Meteora”). They had the crowd for every line, cheering every decision as they screamed out their lyrics. I wish I was there to have a story about singing “In the End” with everybody, but I don’t. What I have is a momentary stop along the way up the stairs where I sat on the stairs and just watched Bennington leaning over with the microphone in hand. It was a perfect sight to end the night on. It was everything this evening was supposed to be and was. Given how Millennials have adopted them as one of the generation-defining acts, I’m grateful to have been there, witnessing their magic even if I wasn’t fully ready to acknowledge it.

As mentioned, the next few days were spent in recovery. I would be on the internet the following night watching Blink-182 perform with a line-up that I forgot. My legs were sore. My ears were ringing. Everything had changed inside me. Was last night even real? I was ready to go to school on Monday and be the cool kid on campus, sharing my story of the raucous events that occurred. As it stands, that evening has come to mind quite a few times throughout the years. A.F.I. connected me to a high school friend. Someone in my art class got excited that I saw Thrice. Even Bennington’s suicide somehow makes me think of the value of appreciating artists while we have them.

There would be many concerts in the years to come, though none as well documented as this. I wouldn’t be back to a KROQ concert, though there were many I had desired to attend. Even then, I was watching them online, feeling that joy of discovery continuing throughout my teens. As I went to less festival-oriented shows, I learned the perils of patience and predicting what drum kicks were warm-up and what was the curtain rising. I’ve found bands I love more than anyone on that roster. I’ve met plenty of excellent musicians. With all of that said, I still am proud that this was my first concert. It set the bar much too high, but it lived up to everything that KROQ and music meant to me at the time. 

The only thing that I don’t like is noticing that 20 years have passed. The Offspring are about to launch a 30th anniversary tour. Where has the time gone?