All my friends have left, and I am alone in a crowd with 20,000 other people. I could care less though. I've been waiting two hours for this, and I'm not about to leave what promises to be the greatest failure I have ever seen.
The crowd is antsy, as am I, because I have acid flowing through my veins. I'm not talking battery acid, like an obscure fight club reference, I'm talking about a tiny little ten dollar pill that promises six hours of fun. It started to take effect about two hours ago. The stars started dancing during the Phil Lesh and friends performance, and I could see patterns in the grass and trees that never existed.
A friend of mine told me it was going to be a religious experience, that my world was going to be flipped upside down and I would never be the same. For just ten dollars, your world can be distorted forever. You'll meet god if you want; your brain will think in new ways and you'll become creative, maybe even enlightened.
At this point, the grass has turned purple and I am seeing pentagrams in the trees. A man walked up to me and asked me who was supposed to be on stage. At the time, I heard none of this. I looked at him with my gaping pupils, and he backed up. I took a step at him, and asked him to repeat himself, and even through the cadence I could tell nothing audible left my mouth. He quickly made himself part of the crowd again and I spun staggered towards the stage. This must be what Hunter S. Thompson felt like in Vegas. People are always trying to talk to you at the most inconvenient times.
I'm not even sure what I expected to happen. He was supposed to be here, and the giant TV screen keeps saying he'll be on in 15 minutes. This was a half an hour ago. I can't take it anymore. My hallucinations have become full-blown. My vision is completely blurred out. I keep putting my hands to my face and shaking my head like that kid from Home Alone. I'd scream, but I don't need the attention. Then, the field goes pitch black. I expect to hear cheers, but all I hear is booing. An electronic voice comes on, telling Mr. West he's crash landed. Then the lights start flashing.
I have no clue where I am, and I think the world is ending. Lasers are shooting at me from the stage, and Kanye West is there, dancing and singing like a 14-year-old girl. I couldn't believe it. The functioning part of my brain, the left side, wanted me to leave, knowing that this was the worst musical act in existence, but the drug-induced right side of my brain just wanted to dance. It wanted to tell everyone in the area that this was the greatest thing to ever happen here at Bonnaroo, and that they should stop booing.
I was in the minority. Here I am, a 21-year-old college kid who thought it would be a good idea to take acid for a Kayne West concert, and there they are, 20,000 of the whitest people I have ever seen, staring directly at me. They're staring at me because I am screaming. I am screaming at the top of my lungs. My left brain has merged with the right and I have no control over anything. I'm screaming, “I'm tripping balls and you're terrible right now!!!” I'm screaming it, over and over again. Everyone is staring at me. For a second, I thought the act had stopped altogether, and Kayne West was staring me down, with all his rich kid fury.
So I turned around and tried to run. But when the grass is purple and the stars are moving at a blinding pace in a gray post-apocalyptic sky, it's hard. So I walked. Not even at a fast pace. I walked right past all these judgmental eyes. I had to get back to my tent, and I knew it was 20 minutes away. It's very hard to stand up straight and walk, let alone not cry while peaking on acid.
I saw a cop on a horse and I thought I was about to shit my pants. Not because of the cop, but because I haven't crapped in two days. Then the word shit got stuck in my head on loop.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
It's the most fascinating word in my vocabulary. The cop looks at me, and I look back, absorbing him into my black hole pupils. I veer at him and he stops his horse, but I stagger right by and into the porta-potty. I can feel him staring at me through the door. I expect him to bust in and find me here, pants down, shitting in the urinal section of the box shitter. I then decide to take a piss in the section made for pooping, and I realize I am pissing slime, not urine. It looks like a solid material pouring from my dong. I panic, thinking I picked up some weird disease from shitting in a urinal.
My pants aren't even pulled up and I bust out the door, finding myself alone. The cop and his behemoth horse are gone. I can't even see any other concert goers. I stagger to my tent, and lay inside, watching the dew evaporate from my tent. I wouldn't sleep for the next 30 hours.
I think the moral of this story is that Kayne West is a terrible artist, even when you're on acid. At least that's what I'm taking from it. Next time I'll get Jay-Z tickets.