The Tokio Hotel Disaster
August 7, 2008 is a blur for Padge and Tuck. It was supposed to be a concert like any other but it didn’t necessarily go that way.
The German glam rockers Tokio Hotel were currently doing their first U.S tour and the pair had decided that, two days before Tuck had to leave for college, it would be a brilliant idea to go and see them.
“It won’t be bad,” Tuck said while idly flipping through her summer reading. “They’re like an edgier version of the Jo Bros. Even my little sis likes some of their songs.”
Padge just shrugged and continued sorting Tuck’s DVD collection. “Whatever, just tell me how much I owe you.”
They had done everything they normally did- painted t-shirts, straightened their hair (Tuck had even gotten up at five in the morning to make sure her waist length hair was pin straight enough to go into two braids), dressed in their carefully planned outfits, and drove down early to make sure they got a good spot inside the venue.
And everything had been going well. They were decently close to the front of the line by the time they got there at nine in the morning, ten hours before the show was set to start. They camped out, listened to premade playlists off their iPod speakers, and just chilled. Granted, Tuck was already getting sun poisoning and, by the time they got into the venue, her cheeks were a lovely shade of bright pink, but, everything had been fine and dandy (except for that weird couple, the tall, pale ones dressed head to toe in patent leather even in one hundred degree weather).
Then they got inside. Decent spots in the crowd acquired, surrounded by teenies who looked like they didn’t know what a mosh pit was, the pair smiled smugly to themselves. This was going to be a piece of cake.
Right.
As soon as the music started and Bill Kaulitz’s hedgehog mane came into view, the teenies turned into raging furies and it just all became one large blue of scratching nails, pulling hair, ripping shirts, and “Tuck!”
Padge lost Tuck early on. She cursed the girl’s short stature and tried valiantly to find her petite friend in the mêlée, but it was all in vain. The valiant Tuck was lost in the abyss of hormones.
Tuck, meanwhile, had gotten to the front and was happily snapping pictures while shoving people off of her. A crowd surfer flew over her head; a girl had a panic attack next to her and had to be lifted from the crowd. Tuck was grinning giddily and mocking the untried teens around her until someone yanked her hair and she fell backwards. Down she went, under feet- heels, flip flops, converses, Doc Martens. They all stamped down on her. She twisted and crawled through the crowd, making her way to what looked like a cave. She got to the darkness and realized she was under a table. She leaned back against one of its legs and took a deep breath. She would never underestimate hormonal fourteen year olds again.
“Hey, kid!”
She snapped her head. One half of the weird vampire couple from earlier was sticking her head under. “You okay?”
Tuck nodded.
“You want to come out from there or do you just want to ride it out there?”
Tuck looked down and took stock of her injuries- bleeding knees; something was stuck in her shin and she would bet you that it was a piece of glass; shirt ripped; shoulder bleeding. She swallowed. She tasted blood in her mouth and her tongue was screaming.
“Yeah, I think I’m cool down here.”
The girl gave her a thumbs up. “No worries, kiddo. My boy and I got this.”
Tuck watched as two pairs of legs came to stand in front of the table. She guessed they were making sure no one landed on the table and crushed her under there. She shrugged and leaned her head back. It was actually okay under there- not too hot, she could hear the music, and no one was ripping her hair from her scalp.
By the time the show had ended, Padge was tearing at her own hair and looking frantically around. The crowd was dispering, leaving behind the remnants of the carnage- ripped shirts, a bra, shattered glasses, torn paper, and…was that a pair of underwear? She saw someone stumbling towards her, holding her shoulder and hair sticking up in every direction possible despite the pigtails that were still holding on for dear life.
“Tuck!”
“Padge!”
The pair stumbled out of the club together and collapsed onto the curb outside. All around them, girls were shrieking, people were making phone calls, and cars were honking.
“That was…” Padge took a deep breath. “That was intense.”
“Worse than the Aiden pit.”
Padge shok her head. “No mosh pit etiquette.”
Tuck waved her hand around, shirt falling even further down her arm. “Like, AFI, I fell, right? But, tonight, I fell and no one helped me. They just stepped on me.”
“Damn.”
“Tell me about it.” Tuck blew a loose strand of her hair from her face.
They knocked shoulders. Tuck leaned her head back. “We are never coming back here.”
Padge shook her head wildly. “No, no this venue is ridiculous.”
“So, agreed, we avoid this place at all costs?”
“Agreed.”
Spoiler: They end up going back there at least twenty more times in the next six years.
