Mini-Project 2: My Rock Star Boots

Mini-Project #2
by Gina Carrano

I've been listening to heavy metal and punk rock music since I was about 13. In that time, I eventually became somewhat of a "scenester," going to concert after concert to check out my favorite bands, both mainstream and underground. In the past ten years, I have been to well over 200 concerts, and have met a lot of bands and collected a lot of souveneirs--from guitar picks to autographed ticket stubs--along the way. Yet my all-time favorite concert momento is a pair of dirty old boots.

These aren't just any dirty old boots, though, they're my dirty old boots, and for me, they bring back more memories than any autographed picture ever could. The boots are a pair of black, 14-hole, steel-toed Doc Martens, and I got them when I was 14. Doc Martens are expensive, and at the time my mom balked at the high price, telling me I'd better be wearing them for years so we could get our money's worth. I don't think either of us could've guessed how many times I'd actually wear them and what a large part of my life they'd become.

My Doc Martens have accompanied me to nearly every concert I've attended in the past decade. They've been on my feet as I waited on interminably long lines to get into venues. They've been on my feet as I stage-dove and crowd-surfed my way through countless mosh pits. They've been with me as I booed opening bands and chanted for encores from the headliners. They led the way as I took my first tentative steps onto Fear Factory's tour bus one exciting night in 1999. They've been there to make me a quarter of an inch taller when I got my picture taken with Peter Steele, the 7-foot-tall lead singer of Type O Negative. They waited paitently with me for seven hours at Tower Records as I set up camp in the parking lot to make sure I was first in line to score tickets for an unprecedented Slayer/Metallica show. The Doc Martens have been there through almost everything I've done relating to music, and to this day I cannot look at them without remembering some of my most wonderful concert experiences.

One concert the boots always make me think of is the Misfits' "25 Years of Terror" anniversary tour in 2001. My friends and I got to the show early, hoping to meet the band, but they never appeared. We got bored waiting outside, so we rummaged in my purse for something to do. We found a bottle of electric blue glitter nail polish, and we proceeded to paint my boots with it, not stopping until the bottle was empty and the boots nearly covered with blue sparkles. As we were enjoying our handiwork, the doors finally opened and we went inside--and ended up seeing one of the best concerts of our lives, after which we did finally get to meet the band.

This was years ago, and my boots endured countless elements since--rain, sleet, snow, you name it. Although most of the nail polish had rubbed off, traces of it were still visible here and there when my boots met their tragic demise in 2005. And there was not a day that I didn't look at that nail polish and fondly remember one of the best nights of my life.

Unfortunately, when I transfered to Drexel from my old school in Florida, my boots somehow got lost in the move from Miami to Philly. I still have no idea what happened to them and I'm still devestated about the loss--I consider it the end of an era. By the time I misplaced them, they were practically falling apart. The laces were fraying, the soles had gotten so worn they were practically nonexistent, and even the shoe leather had taken such a beating that they were being held together with duct tape in a couple of places. But to me they were indestructible. They'd made me feel indestructable every time I stepped into a mosh pit full of guys with necks as big as my head. Those boots had carried me through exuberance, pain, joy and adrenaline. And they'd seen it all, from Scott Ian (of Anthrax fame) at CBGB's to Bon Jovi at the Meadowlands to Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson's infamous reconciliation at Madison Square Garden. If they could talk, they'd have had so many stories to tell.

Nowadays, I like to think my boots are in rock'n'roll heaven. They may be gone, but the experiences I had while wearing them will always remain.