GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Local concertgoer Sam Byrne watched the entirety of Knife Rat’s set last night through the gauged ear of the man in front of him, disgusted sources report.
“I was doing just fine until this 6’7” monster did the old, ‘Oh, hey, my friends are up there’ routine to push his way right in front of me,” recounted an angry Byrne. “I tried maneuvering my head around, but I couldn’t get a good view of the stage. Thankfully, he had a gauged earlobe I could watch through… but it wasn’t even a proper gauge, it was one of those gross, half-healed drooping holes that look like a distended cat anus.”
“Yeah, I could have moved,” Byrne added, “but that would’ve been admitting defeat, and I refuse to lose a fight with someone who doesn’t even know I’m mad at them.”
Venue staff took note of the unrequited animosity between the two men.
“I always look out for tall dudes in the crowd,” laughed bartender Steven Nolan. “Behind every guy who looks like he should be in the NBA, there’s a normal-sized dude getting really pissed off. You’ll normally see the shorter guy subtly push the taller dude or maybe drive an elbow into the guy’s back — once, we even had a short guy try to sneak in a stepladder to stand on. But this time was really grim. I’d never seen someone just give up and watch the show through an orifice.”
Members of Knife Rat admitted they noticed the grim display from the stage.
“Its something I’ve seen more and more throughout the years,” explained singer Tommy Reynolds. “People complain about audiences watching shows through their cell phone screens, but what really gets me is only being able to see the crowd through gauges. I hate just spotting glimpses of peoples’ faces like that, because it makes me paranoid — it feels like they’re spying on me, like they’re the little FBI agents in my webcam.”
Salvaging his evening, Byrne eventually held his phone’s camera right up to the ear hole, resulting in a pretty great vignette effect.