Digital Getdown
August 5, 2004

It's happened to all of us, you’ll be at a show watching a band, and then all of a sudden your foot gets stepped on.  You look down out of curiosity, only to find that a ninety-dollar Steve Madden Vintage Collection shoe is on top of yours.  You slowly look up only to find a fourteen-year-old girl that just screams of statutory rape; she’s wearing a white homemade band shirt that says something like “I want ______ naked.”  The only thing more obnoxious than her hair that she dyed for the punk rock concert, would be her two friends she has a deathlock on.  Somehow, they're both wearing a shirt that is worse than the first, and they both resemble characters from the oblongs.  This gruesome posse has become a tradition at almost every show known as “The Ho Train.”  This hopeful trio will stop at nothing to get the chance for their vital idol to catch a small glimpse of them.  They will hold hands and plunge through a crowd just to get closer to their star.  That my friends, is just one version of the Ho Train, they have always come in many different shapes and sizes.

For instance, there were these girls at the Dashboard Confessional show who screamed their infidelities when they had reached the third row.  There were the girls at the Something Corporate show who all wore matching SOCO shirts, only to take them off when they felt the excitement of the piano being pushed on stage.  And then there were the girls who wore the “I want Kenny” shirts at The Starting Line show who ended up crying when they got hurt from the people in the crowd who kept pushing them into the barricades.  The Ho Train has been around for many years, since the beginning of groupies, the rise of Poison, and in some cases dating back to the Beatles.  But, does anyone know where the Ho train really ends?  Usually these girls get by you and disappear forever, but where do they end up? Do these hopeful girls ever to get to see _______ naked?  I just couldn’t take this mystery anymore, and that is why I decided to follow the Ho train.

I chose Warped Tour for my experiment - I mean where else can you get that many preppy bitches in one spot?  So Chicago Warped (technically Tinley Park) Tour sold out, (thank you Simple Plan) and I decided to get some work done by following hot chicks into a hot, sweaty crowd.  For some reason girls think that watching a harder band smack dap in the middle of the crowd is a brilliant idea.  This was the case during Taking Back Sunday.  I was in the back part of the crowd when two girls had locked hands and went for it.  I decided to follow them and see where I was to end up.  The conclusion, the mosh pit. These two poor girls were ripped apart by the crowd, pushed off to the side and never seen again. 

Alkaline Trio is a rough band live and, when in their hometown of Chicago, the energy is unstoppable.  I arrived barely on time to take photos in the photo pit, when I saw three girls headed for the front row.  It took about two songs until I saw one girl from the trio come out crying with a bloody face.  It, my friends, was awesome.  Also, have any of you ever wondered what happens to all of the shoes you and your friends loose at Warped Tour?  It turns out they are put into a community pile.  I was baffled. 

Finally, Yellowcard’s front man Ryan Key has been the target of many of the conductors on the Ho Train.  Again, I was in the photo pit and watching Yellowcard put on the mediocre performance they have shown me in the past.  However, girls came and watched in awe as this blonde haired god whaled on his guitar.  One girl who went for a ride ended up being pulled out because she had passed out, due to singing with all of her might. 

I know you all thought what I did; boys don’t do the whole Ho Train thing, right?  Wrong.  What I found out during the TBS set is that the Dude Train doesn’t get very far, but it is a good attempt.  Rubbing your gamer tits on some other dude just doesn’t get as far as the real thing does.  So this past week I have learned that the Ho Train doesn’t really make it all that far, and if they do make it to the front, they usually cause some type of bodily harm to themselves.  Please girls, refer back to this article when you think it’s a good idea to wear matching t-shirts, hold hands and dart through a crowd like it matters.

Austin James
austin.James@XROXX.com