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I'm pretty sure this was my 8th grade summer, 1981. I don't remember if we were drunk or stoned, or a combination of both but my little group of 3-4 metalhead friends (we were all wearing either Ozzy, Judas Priest or Black Sabbath shirts) were on our way to our favorite mall. In Mtn View, CA at that time, there was this place called Old Mill. It had been voted California's best mall 7 years in a row. It was really pretty, open water, koi, and an old wooden mill that delivered water from the 2nd floor to the little lake. It had amazing ambiance, pond-side fine dining, a huge pizza parlor that bands often would play at and a movie theater that during the summer would have movies like Corvette Summer or Star Wars playing for $1 or 50 cent matinee.
We strolled around like we owned the place... we actually kind of did. One time someone started something with us, and we gathered a huge crowd of people that we knew... gossip spread like wildfire, and we had 30-40 people following us around because some other group of pali (Palo Alto kids) were talking shit and wanted to start a fight... the fight never happened because we scared them off.
Sorry, digressions...
Anyway, one day I went there with several of my best friends. We were kinda fucked up on something... it was really only either pot or alcohol, but we were messed up. We were strolling through the mall when we came across some people we didn't recognize... they were wearing leather and had huge curly permed hair and were sitting at the French restaurant there across the walkway from the pond.
Of course, we didn't like this, we were punk children. So we walked up with them and tried to instigate a fight. It didn't matter that these guys were like 6' tall, and obviously in their late 20's or a little older perhaps. They were in OUR mall. Even though they would have obviously kicked the shit out of us, they remained seated looking at us with a bit of a bewildered but entertained gaze as we were approaching them and talking shit to them. No matter what we said, they were calm and collected and just sat there with smiles... a few provoking little jabs at us, but they were being completely friendly while we were giving them attitude.
No fight ever broke out... but we had continued this conversation for at least half an hour until our attitudes kinda disappeared.... it was pretty obvious that these people that invaded our private and personal space were metalheads and somehow the conversation veered away from "why are you in our mall" to talking about metal.... I mean we were all wearing metal t-shirts. Some time later during the convo, they said they were in a band and were just in the area and wanted to see this well known mall. Of course we said "yeah, right, you're all full of shit"... and of course, they laughed but were friendly and probably found us entertaining, because they did look like they were sitting there kinda bored... so after talking for maybe an hour or so they said they had to go, and by that time, even though we didn't believe their stories, we ended up liking them and we shook their hands before they left.
That was the day I met the band Great White.
We strolled around like we owned the place... we actually kind of did. One time someone started something with us, and we gathered a huge crowd of people that we knew... gossip spread like wildfire, and we had 30-40 people following us around because some other group of pali (Palo Alto kids) were talking shit and wanted to start a fight... the fight never happened because we scared them off.
Sorry, digressions...Anyway, one day I went there with several of my best friends. We were kinda fucked up on something... it was really only either pot or alcohol, but we were messed up. We were strolling through the mall when we came across some people we didn't recognize... they were wearing leather and had huge curly permed hair and were sitting at the French restaurant there across the walkway from the pond.
Of course, we didn't like this, we were punk children. So we walked up with them and tried to instigate a fight. It didn't matter that these guys were like 6' tall, and obviously in their late 20's or a little older perhaps. They were in OUR mall. Even though they would have obviously kicked the shit out of us, they remained seated looking at us with a bit of a bewildered but entertained gaze as we were approaching them and talking shit to them. No matter what we said, they were calm and collected and just sat there with smiles... a few provoking little jabs at us, but they were being completely friendly while we were giving them attitude.
No fight ever broke out... but we had continued this conversation for at least half an hour until our attitudes kinda disappeared.... it was pretty obvious that these people that invaded our private and personal space were metalheads and somehow the conversation veered away from "why are you in our mall" to talking about metal.... I mean we were all wearing metal t-shirts. Some time later during the convo, they said they were in a band and were just in the area and wanted to see this well known mall. Of course we said "yeah, right, you're all full of shit"... and of course, they laughed but were friendly and probably found us entertaining, because they did look like they were sitting there kinda bored... so after talking for maybe an hour or so they said they had to go, and by that time, even though we didn't believe their stories, we ended up liking them and we shook their hands before they left.
That was the day I met the band Great White.
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