What it was like
Some albums saved your life at seventeen. The people who made them are still out there, still playing, and they are louder than you remember — which is either reassuring or alarming depending on how your week has gone.
Three bands, three decades of hard rock, one amphitheatre under a September sky. Godsmack has moved twenty million records without ever sanding down the sound that got them there. Stone Temple Pilots, after the losses and the lineup changes and all the years, still play Dead and Bloated like the song owes them money. Dorothy brings a blues-soaked ferocity that bridges the two eras on either side of her.
North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, with the local rock station putting its name on the night.
Text this to whoever you used to scream along with in a parked car. Some of that is still in there, and it does not take much to wake it up.