Sir, you have to check your walker at the door

Somewhere between early Pearl Jam and today the concert rules changed. I wasn't consulted, interviewed or asked to ratify these new rules and I can't help but feel a little like a feeble grandfather shoved into a corner during Christmas dinner muttering about the good ol' days. "Back in my day," I say through loose-fitting dentures, "we slam danced at punk shows, bounced at new wave shows and never crowd surfed during set changes."

I knew the concert world had moved on without me after Tuesday night's show, 103.5's "How the Edge Stole Christmas." The show should have been called "Old Fogey Rocker Infests Teenage Safe Haven." I was a scorpion in an ant hill. A mouse in a snake pit. A fire hydrant in a dog pound. The kids were everywhere, crawling, no, swarming - my God they swarmed - across the main floor. I thought maybe I should have called security, let them know they had an infeststation of wild-haired whipper snappers, but didn't think the rent-a-cops had a bug bomb large enough to gas the lot of them. They had their hands full anyway with the hooligans crowd surfing over the front barricade like cockroaches sneaking under a house's floor boards.

Yes, I agree, at 34, I've become my grandpas. I sit on my front porch and yell at cars to slow down. I have a slingshot at the ready in case some punk decides to cross my line of demarcation and tread on my front yard. "What, your ball is on my property? Tough noodles, son, how 'bout I give you a swift kick in the ass for walking on my freshly raked driveway?"

Lucky for me and the group I roll with (that's right, I roll. I'm one hep cat) has connections and we landed in a suite. But wait, this wasn't just any old suite, this was the OWNER'S suite. Our good friend Chris works at the Swift air terminal at Sky Harbor. The head big wig at Swift is the top cheese for the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League. So our main man Chris gets hooked up with tickets to anything at the Glendale Arena every once in awhile. And as payment to watch Money Pit 1 and Money Pit 2 when Wife and I escape the Arizona walls, he takes us to the suite at the Arena for free chow and beer.

The concert featured six bands, 1 of which I had never heard of (Shiny New Pistols), 2 of which I had vaguely heard of (Say Anything - should be named See Anything but these Schmucks - and OK Go) 2 more I knew only by name (Plain White Ts and Taking Back Sunday) and finally the headliner - AFI. Watching these six bands, I realized there has been another rule change of which I was not consulted - singers scream now. It's not a few random "Yeahs" anymore, they're screaming out whole verses. I could be wrong - there's been just one recorded case, ask Wife - but I'm guessing that's not something taught at the Juliard School of Music. I don't think "Screaming Songs 401" (it's a higher-level class) is on the curriculum. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hearing a dude scream until his larynx shears off and falls to the stage, but how about picking the spots. Going to the well too much waters down the message.

It was a good thing I was in the safe confines of the Owners box too, because two bands decided to cover a pair of songs from my faves - Depeche Mode and Violent Femmes. 'Pistols' covered a post-Violator (Mode's best album) song and OK Go did the Femmes' "Prove My Love." While the latter's lead singer didn't conjure any images of Gordon Gano, it was still solid, but I'm sure 95 percent of the punks on the floor were asking themselves "Isn't this a song from that 'Blister in the Sun' band?" If I heard that I'm sure I would have freaked out like Dustin Hoffman at the airport in "Rain Man". I'm pretty the hooligans would have attributed my bezerkness to my age or the prescription drugs I must take to stay regular and then called security. That's ageism at its finest, dump on the old guy while the acne-faced teens bombard the stage and get redirected back to the concert nest. Meanwhile, I'm in the pokey being eyed by prisoners like I'm the lamb and they're the wolves.

I should have known I made a wrong turn at Albuerquerque when I traversed through our nation's furture in jeans and button-down shirt. Not my typical concert attire but Wife - who we all know dresses me because she never had a Ken doll when she was a kid - reminded me that I was sitting in the owner's box (again, thanks Chris) and that Mr. Moyes may just be there tonight (yeah, an alternative-rock-slash-punk show seemed just the place for a trucking magnate). I thought I could assimilate with teenage bugs by wearing old-school Vans, but after seeing a pair of blonde mohawks, a dude in a kilt and plenty of black eyeliner - ON THE BOYS - I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Hell, the state wasn't even in my rearview mirror.

When did things go cuckoo? We used to dress similar - the eyeliner stayed on the girls usually - but the hair was long and dirty. It was a much better effect when head banging. Yellow rooster hairdos don't capture the head-whipping action quite the same.

The highlight of the concert was OK Go. They were dressed like they should be running a bank - 3-piece suits sans jackets - and hopped all over the stage like frenzied rabbits looking for bunnies to inseminate. I'm out of the loop with them and the Internet, I guess there's some deal on YouTube with the band dancing on treadmills (they didn't bring them to the concert) and in their back yard. Both routines are synchronized between the four band members and are funnier than Christoper Walken gliding to a Fatboy Slim song. They performed the back yard dance to close their set and I snorted beer and nacho cheese out my nose. If you have the opportunity to do so, don't. That's Grandpa Michael's advice for the day.

The only thing that saved Taking Back Sunday from being renamed Give me Back my Tuesday was the lead singer's deft twirling of the mic. I couldn't take my eyes of him, more because I thought he'd wrap the cord around his neck and forget to spin out of the wrap job before the cord crushed his throat sending his adam's apple through the back of his neck. That never happened, though, instead he'd twirl away from the coil as if he was a top and then launch the mic high above him only to catch while kneeling down to scream out some more lyrics. For a second, I thought we were watching Cirque du Solei without the contortionists, trapeze or humans-in-unitard pyramids.

I wish I could remember how AFI looked, all I remember (memory is the first to go at my age) is that everything was white, which tells me either I was dead and heading toward the white light, or that's the band's thing - white speakers, woofers and trees. Instead I was again transfixed by the teenimites on the floor. They slammed - perfectly acceptable - but the pit looked more like a large-scale barroom brawl than a dance-a-thon. Elbows, hooks, jabs, even a body slam were being thrown from all angles. It was WWF night set to rock music. One humongous human being stood in the middle of the pit, and I was sure that was Andre the Giant back from the dead.

I checked my outdated concert rule book and Rule 42(a), Section 32 states: Thou shalt not throw forearm shivers or head butt fellow slam dancers inside said pit. One new rule I do like, however, is the handshakes and one-armed hugs given by the slammers after each song. That was something missing back in my day. You were lucky to get a hand up before being trampled by 1,000 screaming concert goers back then. Now, it's slam dancing Barney-style.

Hmmm, a giant, purple dinosaur outfit maybe that's the natural progression for concert clothing. I think I'll call the rules committee tonight and suggest the ammendment, we're about ready for another rule change, aren't we?