Waiting in line to see Motörhead for the second time, is a whole different feeling than the first.

The chilly Minnesota winds, that on any other day would have penetrated my skin, drilled through the bones right into the marrow to give me chills that travel up my spine to the brain causing brain-freeze, aren’t as cold tonight. Standing in what seems to be a never-ending line of junkies, crust punks, 40+ year old bikers and fellow metalheads, that turns, twists and twirls from one end of Seventh Street to the other doesn’t seem to bother me. Being stared at and frowned upon by roadies that claim to follow the band around, who’ve been waiting to get a cheap ticket, doesn’t bring any sympathy to my heart as I chase down the scalper who is trying to sell two tickets; 20 bucks a piece. Needs his crack more than the show I suppose, “Works fine for me” I tell myself. The 6’8” bouncers don’t intimidate me as I sneakily stuff my camera, which is larger than the normally allowed ‘small personal cameras,’ in my pocket. One time I had a bouncer shine a laser beam on my camera; as I was trying to take a shot of Alexi Laiho; that I had to have my camera hidden throughout the whole show, since the ‘laser beam on camera’ means one thing and one thing only. “Fellow bouncers, get this guy out of here!!!”

None of this really matters. As I get my hand stamped and step into First Avenue, all I can smell is the familiar smell of leather, beer and Marlboro….and the anxiety in the air.

First Avenue has a way of having really fucked-up movies on a giant screen before a show begins. The last time I was there to see Satyricon and Cradle of Filth, they had some gory Rob Zombie movie up. This time, I noticed they had some really, really messed up shit on the big screen. The movie had a giant, green, pulsating brain growing in a tank which could see through other people’s eyes, and an old man in a trench coat who ate cake with his long fingernails. Go figure! What the heck does this have to do with Motörhead? I don’t know.

I found my spot for the rest of the night, in the front row between a big Mexican and a guy with long curly hair and a WACKEN wristband, who later became my ‘new Russian friend’ and the center of a lot of inside jokes.

Some 20 minutes later, a drunk guy wearing dorky glasses and a St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirt, who’s trying to slam dance, bumps into me. For a split second my attention is misdirected to the drunkard who just bumped into me and the next thing I know I am trying to save my spot as Throw Rag hit the stage.

The crowd went equally insane as the Throw Rag front man, Captain Sean Doe took stage. During the first song, I turned around to take a look at the pit, but only to see a giant of a guy with a really tall mohawk sporting a ‘Millions of Dead Cops’ T-shirt right behind me. Despite my undeniable temptation, I prefer to follow my instinct and to stay out of the pit while that guy is still around. Seconds later, somebody just slams right into me, getting me squished between the Mexican, the Russian and a metal barricade that was built with raging hatred towards any kind of bodily movement towards the stage. Looking back and seeing the drunk guy being pushed to the ground was probably one of my highlights for the night.

Throw Rag was unique; their blend of rock and punk was a good opener for Motörhead. The quick show that lasted from a Captain Doe in a full sailor outfit to merely red underwear, whacking himself in the back with his own belt, with a crazy trumpet guy in the middle, told me nothing but, Captain Doe was as high as a kite, probably tripping on some really good acid. This presumption however, later turned out to be wrong, since I had a really intellectual conversation with Captain Doe about his music and Lemmy’s autobiography, and throughout our conversation he was perfectly normal and fairly polite (for a man who stripped to his undergarments in front of a crowd that mostly consisted of very hairy and sweaty men).

Reverend Horton Heat was up next. Of course, there was First Avenues fair share of fucked up movies and staff members who walked through the crowd trying to sell ridiculously expensive beer and Jäger shots that we had to tolerate before that. Despite the increasing anxiety to see Motörhead, I patiently waited for Reverend Horton Heat to be done with their set. However they put up an awesome show. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anything like that before, and literally it was ‘some kinda messed up Minneapolis Psychobilly Freak-out.’ I am not too sure if the Mid West has very many Psychobilly fans, but we sure as hell have enough drunks who’ll mosh all night, if the beat’s all right. And First Avenue lived up to the name.

So patient reader, if you read this piece of crap of an article this far, you probably did so because you wanted to read about Motörhead. Well, my dear friend, waiting at shows for two and a half hours, watching shitty opening bands with unreadable logos and listening to them play different riffs over the same blast beat and calling them new tracks off their new albums, nobody gives a piece of crap about has made my senses numb, that I no longer feel an innocent metalhead’s anticipation.

Anyhow, I was standing squashed between the fat Mexican and a Russian who just wouldn’t’ stop talking about WACKEN, immune to First Avenue’s fucked up movies, the drunks, the cross-dressers and what seemed to be an endless stream of beer, falling in droplets out of cups that kept flying all over the place. My ringing ears couldn’t distinguish if the song being played was by Down or Super Joint Ritual. All my senses were anticipating one thing and one thing only. The roadies who were sound-checking and setting up the equipment didn’t really ring a bell in my head to say that Motörhead will be up soon. Even though I honestly don’t remember my response, I do remember the Russian making a comment about the Drum Roadie’s butt!

It was when I was trying to be part of a really unsuccessful “Motörhead” chant, that I heard a very familiar, gravelly voice that could only have been achieved by smoking two packs a day for over 40 years. And the voice went….”We are Motörhead and we play Rock ’n’ Roll.”

And with that, the crowd shrunk in like the wiener of a man who just got done wanking to an ex-girlfriend. I suddenly got extra squashed like the tiny nuts of a jacked up football player who got tackled a few yards from a touchdown, with a pile of other equally jacked up football players with tiny nuts, on top of him. The crowd started moving in an up & down motion like the behind of the girl who just walked by, that looked like she was dressed for America’s Next Biggest Whore. Long story short: SHIT WENT DOWN!

Motörhead opened with Iron Fist. Phil Campbell killed, with his signature cig dangling from the corner of his mouth. Mikkey Dee taught First Avenue how a Swedish white boy, with long blonde hair and blue eyes, bends a drum set over and make sweet love to it. And Lemmy fucking Kilmister cleaned the First Avenue clocks sporting his ever favorite ball-sacs-in-your-face tight black pants and white knee high boots. And really, all there is to say is, they are Motörhead, the loudest band known to the human race, and they lived up to their name. At the time, my ear drums were under severe pain as a result of standing right in front of the P.A. system for almost two hours. But when Motörhead started blasting out of those very same P.A’s , only ten times louder, it felt as if, warm, thick honey was oozing out of them and flowing right into my ears, filling my brain with a buzz only one band on earth can deliver.

Holy fucking shit! I know us metalheads have our own weird ways of trying to find solutions to global problems that concern us only when we have a bottle of Jack to stare at. We all have our daily chores we ignore without hesitation to go see bands and wait outside to meet them 3 hours after the show when it’s freezing cold outside with 6 inches of snow up to our knees. But as the show got more and more intense by minute, I only had one question. As more sweaty, ugly, shirtless men bumped into me, as more crowd surfers were tossed around like inanimate objects, I was only bothered by one thing. “Motör-fucking-head, how do they still fucking do it?”

Of course, there had to be the drunk, who throws shit at the band and wouldn’t stop yelling “Ace of Spades, Ace of Spades!” Lemmy goes “Shut up when I am talking” and First Avenue is pin drop silent. Insanity level….zero.

As the crowd settles down, Lemmy lights up another cigarette, looks at the sound guy and gestures him to crank it up a notch. “Let me share a familiar story with you,” goes Lemmy; “This when we go backstage to have a smoke, you give us an ENCORE, we come back and play Whore House Blues.” “Hell yeah,” responds the crowd in unison. “Alright, so let us cut bullshit out, go backstage, smoke a cig, and you folks just relax eh?” And, I don’t care who your favorite ball sucking band is, but you don’t do that on the First gig of a two month long tour….unless of course you are Motörhead and you have been rocking since the 60’s and still living as fast as ever, producing penis crushing, ball busting music every step of the way.

And indeed, they came back on stage and played Whore House Blues, and it felt like the very first time I listened to that song. As Lemmy played the harmonica, Phil sucked in the smoke from his Marlboro like Jenna Jameson blowing that bald, white guy and Mikkey Dee sat double-fisting a Bass foot drum/Hi-Hat set and an acoustic guitar, I was in my own zone relishing the thoughts from last year of meeting Lemmy and Motörhead. And to top it all, Lemmy threw a guitar pick right at me, and I swear to God, it felt like eating that Cherry that sits on top of whipped cream on a better-than-sex-cake, oozing out its juices ready to be eaten.

Motörhead then played The Ace of Spades-to which the crowd went insane- and closed the show with Overkill, and got offstage without bullshitting about MySpace pages and websites and e-bay and all that.

I waited outside for three hours while my nuts were freezing, to get my shit signed and take pictures and left with the thought of a two hour drive home, while Lemmy probably went backstage again, to drink Jack and Coke and do a photo shoot with Biker Chicks he’ll probably end up sleeping with later. Life is good!

Photo Credit kk+ / candescent