Toby Got Beat Up At A Metallica Show And DD Showed He Was A Heavy Metal Rocker, Too

Whilst rocking out in the car to the now old skool Master Of Puppets (a burned copy too...take that Lars!) my mind wandered back to the Damaged Justice tour and Metallica's Nashville stop on August 16, 1989. I was there with the skateboarding gang of Gonz, Toby, and Mike while DD Blank was there with his cousin Jimbo having purchased their tickets late in the game at our urging. Metallica launched into the first thunderous thrash of "Blackened" and Gonz screamed out, "I wonder how DD likes this" perhaps thinking the music was too loud and metallic for his super smart math geek tastes.

We glanced over to where DD was seated and he was on his feet pumping his fists into the air screaming at the world just like the rest of us. It was at that moment that the skateboarding gang figured out something that I already knew; that DD wasn't just some supra intelligent goodie two shoes (he was most voted most likely to suceed, not most likely to rock), but was just as depraved and human as the rest of us. Metallica were awe inspiring gods of rock that night with plenty of glory for us all just as they had been 6 months previously.

Gonz, Toby, Mike and I journeyed to Hunstville, Alabamy with banjoes on our knees to see Metallica rock the Von Braun Civic Center on February 8, 1989. It was cold and the snow capped peaks of Lynchburg were treacherous, but we all made it down while listening to New Order and Anthrax tapes (what a weirdo Wally combo pack). The show rawked in a must pleasing speed metal / thrash way (the Damaged Justice is regarded by many as Metlallica's live concert peak) and when the crowd began to mosh during the encores the security guards starting throwing people out of the show. This pissed us off to see the no necked weightlifting thugs roughing up kids so I threw a penny at the skull of a security goon who was grappling with a slamdancing scoundrel while Toby spit at the dude's gorilla cranium neither of us knowing that a second trailing concert security enforcer was following who witnessed your loogie rebellion while missing my penny assault and I nailed the bastard too.

The next Gonz, Mike, and I knew Toby was swept up into the goon's loving arms and promptly shown the door. I think Toby even had a broke body part at the time - an arm or wrist or something because I can remember talking about saying that the security guards did it? Did we bail on the encores to go check on Toby? Hell no...so magnetically great was Metallica's pull. We did discuss it quite earnestly, but it wasn't like Toby was gonna' freeze to death in 15 minutes or so. What a night.