Van Andel Concession Stand

For the past couple of months now I've been doing some moonlighting to raise money for my sons' marching band expenses. What I'm doing is working at a food booth in the Van Andel Arena, primarily running a cash register and pulling taps for beer. The first event I worked was a Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game. I also worked an Arena Football game for the Grand Rapids Rampage. But what's really gotten me enthusiastic about this are the music concerts I've been able to work. I've seen Metallica, the Eagles and Shania Twain (I passed on Alabama), with Simon & Garfunkel, Van Halen, Incubus and Phil Collins scheduled in the coming months.

Metallica was by far the most hectic and memorable event, given the nature of the crowd that they draw and the intensity of their music. It was also our biggest money-maker that I've worked, mainly due to all the $5.75 28-oz. cups of beer we sold. We would have sold a lot more if Metallica hadn't instituted a 9:00 pm cut-off on beer sales (the same time they took stage.) We had to deal with a lot of angry customers, I mean, cussing us out and almost ready to go off levels of anger. The band was great - they have a huge stage that they like to prowl around, a massive lighting and video rig and of course over two decades worth of awesome metal anthems to choose from in preparing their set list. Though I've never owned a Metallica CD, I know a lot of their songs from radio play and listening to kids' tapes from Wedgwood over the years. My sons own two of their old classics, "Ride the Lightning" and "Master of Puppets." I know the Black Album pretty through and through and I'm also familiar with "...And Justice for All" and a few tracks from "Kill 'Em All." Not so clued in on their newer stuff though. Which is fine. Mostly I just liked the buzz and pound and killer riffs I heard spilling out of the arena. I was able to check out "Sad But True" and "Master of Puppets" on my brief breaks from the stand.

I'll comment on the Eagles and Shania concerts later, I just wanted to enter this into the record but I don't have time to tell the whole story right now. Got some catching up to do.