There aren’t many things that can get me to drive south of LA down to Orange County, California. Those of us snobs that live in the city call it driving behind the Orange Curtain. I’m not dissing OC from a place of ignorance, either; I lived in Huntington Beach for eight years. I escaped in 1998 and I’ve never been back. No offense to HB, it’s just not this city boy’s style.

So what got me down there last weekend?

My band Anthrax was opening for Iron Maiden two nights at Irvine Meadows, now corporately named Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. It was an insane weekend of metal. Over 30,000 metal maniacs losing their minds for us, and of course Maiden. It really brought me back to the late '80s and early '90s when we toured the world many times with the kings of metal. I’ve gotta give it up to the OC, San Diego county, Inland Empire and LA freaks. The shows more than made up for having to stay in the vortex that is known as The Block in Orange.

The Block is one of these pre-fab outdoor shopping malls with an edge! This ain’t your daddy’s outdoor mall. It’s a one-stop shop for all your No Fear and Oakley needs. I will say, on the positive side, the Vans skate park is sick and I can’t even imagine having something like that down the street from my house when I was a kid.

We were staying at the Doubletree Hotel there (free cookies!) and food wise we were at the mercy of the hotel kitchen or the Block's fine food establishments. When we got back to the hotel at 11:30 PM after the Friday night show, the room service was already closed. Luckily a bunch of my poker buddies that flew in for the show were staying at the Doubletree as well and they picked up fifteen double-doubles from In-N-Out on their way back from the concert. If you’re not familiar with the west coast's finest burgers, In-N-Out are the shit. And at 1:00 AM hungry, drunk and basking in the post-show glory they were a lifesaver. I know people will argue ‘til the end of time over the best burger, everyone has their favorite. I will state as fact that as far as chains go, In-N-Out crushes everything in its path like Cthulhu.

The next day a bunch of us headed over to the Block to check out the culinary offerings.

The first place we saw was a brewery/restaurant called Alcatraz Brewing Co. My hopes of it being a restaurant based on the early '80s band with Yngwie Malmsteen were quickly dashed by its jail themed exterior. I should’ve known by the one Z in Alcatraz as well. Damn!

I’ll never understand a jail themed restaurant. Who wants to eat in jail? Does jail scream good eatin’? How do these places get backing? Who pitches that?

Alcatraz idea guy: We’ll build a place that looks like a jail and it will be fun for the whole family!

Guy with too much money: Sold in the room!!!

I refuse to make a tossed salad joke.

We skipped the Jailery and walked around in the too-bright heat surrounded by Quizno’s and Krispy Kreme and Johnny Rocket’s and Cinnabon and Carl’s Jr. etc, etc. At this point I was nauseous from the heat and from getting accosted by some teenage sales girls at the Hot Topic-esque store asking me if I was “the singer.” What kind of question is that? Not are you the singer of [insert any band name here]? Just, “are you the singer?”

Our attempt at finding something to eat was a failure and I decided I would just wait and eat at the venue as the catering was pretty good.
Luck was with me again because when I got to the venue it turns out that my friend Gary Notley who is a professional BBQ chef (his company is called Notley Que) brought enough pulled pork for a small army. The Metal Gods were looking out for me!! BBQ and Metal, a match made in Hell.
Sadly after the show Saturday night we didn’t get another In-N-Out delivery so we just drank. And drank. And drank and sang Maiden songs ‘til the sun came up.

Up the Irons!!

Scott

www.myspace.com/scottian
www.anthrax.com
http://www.ultimatebet.com/scott-ian/?ubAffilID=73329
www.nonelouder.com/scottian
http://blogs.scifi.com/battlestar/scottian/