Dateline: July 10, 2013. That summer, Bob Dylan had a special set of openers for his Never Ending Tour. These dates were titled the Americanarama Festival of Music. I saw the show in St. Paul, MN, at the minor league baseball ballpark. The stage was around home plate, ergo the entire field filled up with people, a lot of people. I went with my live music buddy Jim and his buddy Mike who I'd not met before (or since).
With 4 acts that's a very long show, ergo we got there the tail end of My Morning Jacket. I knew of them but that's it. Quickly regretted missing the bulk of their gig as they were jammy groovy fun. The opener was guitar god Richard Thompson, one of my faves, saw him years earlier solo (w/Chris Smither opening!) also a full electric band at First Avenue (Neil Young played that night across the street in basketball arena, he was making fun). But then it's a 6 hr+ gig so we skipped him. I read later he only played for 20 minutes.
Anyhoots. The 3 of us are watching My Morning Jacket lay down their tasty licks. Behind us were 2 couples in their 20s. They were yapping loudly. Earlier in the show it wasn't near as crowded, ergo they were annoyingly loud, and just 5 feet behind us. Jim turns around and tells them to pipe down. Which they do. During the lengthy changeover between My Morning Jacket to Wilco, Jim starts chatting them up. I glance at him then ignore it. Why? Because Jim is incapable of being quiet, ever. He talks & talks & talks, to anyone, anywhere.
I continue not paying attention, but here's what happened. The girls went to get beers and brought a cup for Jim & Mike. Maybe Jim felt bad for quieting them and bought everyone a round, not sure. In a stroke of amazingly good luck, I decided to only drink water at the gig. This was a year before I got sober. My deal was basic: unless I had fast, unlimited access to booze refills, I wouldn't drink out of my house. Because when I did drink, which was often, I did so fiercely. A lot, and fast. And I'm extremely impatient ergo waiting in beer lines at a concert doesn't work for me.
Ergo, I avoided what followed. And here's what followed. We were all watching Wilco, who played for 90 minutes. It was still daylight out. I felt a big thump on the grass. Looked and there was Jim sprawled out on the ground spread eagle on his back. He had fallen right over, boom. Mike & I couldn't figure out what happened. Jim was flat on his back, eyes open, but couldn't speak. Eventually he was able to sit up, where he remained for a long time, 20 minutes or maybe more.
A nurse came out of the crowd and said put a wet towel on his neck, which we did using napkins. Jim had been smoking weed during the show so I figured the weed beer mix got to him. Mike & I were talking this over, both baffled. Jim remained at our feet, seated on the grass. He couldn't stand for a long long time, over 30 minutes.
Mike & I continued watching Wilco. Jim is my size, around 6ft, Mike is way bigger, 6'3" and pushing 230. I began telling Mike, that was so weird, Jim just falling over like that and not being able to get up, but it's probably just the weed mix. Literally whilst I'm saying this to Mike his legs buckle and down he goes. Big Mike in a big thud. I watch every second of this, like a falling tree. Jim is still sitting by my feet and now big Mike goes down. That's when I knew immediately they had been drugged by the 20 year old's. Mike took longer to drop as he's so big. But they had been roofied or whatnot.
Myself? Tiptop because I was buying and drinking bottled water for hours. So now I had Jim still sitting there on the ground, and Mike flat on his back. But this time I didn't worry as much as I knew they'd been drugged and it would pass. I had a feeling the druggers were watching all this but by then there were thousands on the infield where we were, so who knows. I debated going over to first aid tent and telling them but I never did. Maybe I should have. Basically I just watched over them.
Eventually Jim was able to stand up. Then big Mike also after 30 minutes. We walked over nearer the side of the stage, where the first aid tent was nearby. By the time Bob Dylan had started they were both standing. Weren't able to talk much so I didn't bug them with questions. Just stayed next to them. And wasn't able to enjoy the Dylan show as I was too stressed out, or maybe irritated at them, even though they were the victims.
Or were they? I kept thinking over in my head: you let total strangers go get you beers. Are you fucking stupid?
After an hour of Dylan I said 'hey let's split' which they didn't argue. Actually most of the crowd was streaming out by then. His band is always world class tight (I've seen him 5x) but his voice was gawdawful that night. Like a croak. It was a half mile walk to the car which I welcomed just to get out of there and get moving. We had car pooled in my car from Jim's house in Roseville suburb. On the way we stopped for Greek fast food (Dino's Gyros!) to get food & aqua and give Mike more time before he had to drive himself home. They were quiet. They knew they had been drugged.
I of course was fine physically, thankful I was drinking bottled water all day & eve. I've told this story a few times, and when I do sometimes I'll hear back a similar story.
Moral: never ever let anyone have access to your drinks, regardless of what you're drinking. Blokes: this applies to you too.