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Rock and Roll Monster Bash
Starlight Drive In
June 2005

Next up, The Cogburns, who I'd seen about 16 hours earlier at Jake's Toadhouse. I snapped this picture of degenerate VS snapping a picture, much to his chagrin. I like how it perfectly covers Glen Cogburn's face, and shows off VS's scalp.

I should've taken more photos of the fans too. The standard look seemed to be black t-shirt and tons of tattoos. The Atlanta Tattoo Convention was at a hotel in town and you could've mistaken the Starlight parking lot for the hotel's parking lot with all the inked skin around.

The Cogburns put on a good show with their new bassist joining in the jumping around, despite the miniskirt. Cute stuff.

A couple of hardcore Grand Moff Tarkin fans appeared in full Empire attire, posing here with degenerate SG, organizer of the weekly Drive Invasions.

On the side stage the luscious Calu of Doll Squad did a dance that made the lady behind me pull her child away.

Then Sassparilla the Singing Gorilla brought out Barb, done up as an innocent Catholic school girl, as sacrifice to the demonic Calu.

Calu attacked her, which was supposed to result in spurting blood but a minor special effects malfunction left only a puddle of blood on the pavement after Sassparilla hauled off the body. But it wasn't the special effects that kept the crowd's eyes glued to the stage...

Afterward was the Ms. Monster Bash contest in which your editor was drafted as a judge. There were only three contestants and my pictures didn't turn out so great. The winner was a couple of lovely girls in metal underwear who used grinders on each other. They grumbled that you couldn't see the sparks in the daytime but the judges were unanimous - anything involving powertools on private parts, even parts covered in steel, was a winner with us.

Then it was time for the headlining band, the final performance of local legends Grand Moff Tarkin.

Darth Vader as lead singer, a stormtrooper on bass, a couple of red-robed imperial guards on guitar, Boba Fett on keyboard, and a Death Star gunner on drums, with Jango Fett and another stormtrooper to guard the stage - a band for the children of Lucas, of all ages.

But the afternoon rains hadn't cooled off the blacktop enough for costumes like this, at least not while rocking the fans below. After only a couple of numbers the helmets came off to reveal familiar faces to anyone who's seen just about any Atlanta band.

There was this kid, maybe 5 years old, on the edge of the stage having the time of his life. He thrashed around and gave the devil horns just like any other fan. Fantastic. Eventually Jim stripped off the armor and leather shirt, down to his sweaty tank top.

Jim later said it was a ritual stripping for the final GMT show, but I figured it was just from the heat. Regardless, the show rocked, particularly since the final Star Wars flick was showing on one of the screens behind the stage later that evening.

We assembled our seating for the movies and settled in just in time for the trailers to flicker to life. As with most retro events at Starlight, the trailers are perhaps the best part. But, as with all retro movie events, getting new ones is the hardest part so there's several I've seen multiple times over the years. In fact, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre print we had was subtitled in Spanish, a distraction throughout the film that offered several heckling opportunities.

1974's Texas Chainsaw Massacre was cutting edge, so to speak, in its day. The plot is skin-deep but the visuals and the strange ending more than make up for it's lack of subtlety. I'm not sure if I've ever seen it on the big screen either, so I had a blast. The film is short so I wasn't ready to call it a night when it was over, despite having to be at work the next morning. So I stuck around with other degenerates for The Thing, John Carpenter's 1982 version. We'd seen the original at a previous Drive Invasion so I was glad to see the newer version. It's packed with nice latex/rubber effects, which is always good to see in the CGI age.

A big event at the drive in wouldn't be complete without a little off-screen weirdness and/or drama. During one of the films a local girl hid herself from her friends behind a van, directly in front of us, and sobbed, adding a strange soundtrack to the gory visuals on screen above her. Before I could decide if I should get involved or try to console her someone else stepped around and took up the task.
A while later a guy I'd seen drinking in the sun all day stumbled through the row of cars and had a fit of a different sort, thrashing around as if attacked by invisible demons. He fought them off and stumbled on toward the concession stand or bathroom, reappearing a while later to have another spasm. My friends and I just looked at each other and giggled.

By the time The Thing was over I was more than ready to hit the bed, with visions of dismemberments dancing in my head.

If you want more info, check out the Rock and Roll Monster Bash site.

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