So my night was meant to relatively simple. Two friends (let’s call them Daniel and Lisa) were gonna come over to take some mushrooms. They had been dating for 2 years, but had broken up recently and thought a trip could help them sort through their resentment. They wanted me there to help them both out. I love the hell out of them both, so I agreed to join. We were just going to stay inside, and just have some time together. I looked forward to having a chance to connect with them on a level deeper than just smoking some pot. Plus, I thought it was a good idea. I could tell each of them the hard truth they needed to hear, and yet keep them grounded and not at eachothers throats. Boy, what an adventure that was.
	It was late in the day and still had not contacted me. I was beginning to think that this gathering was going to happen much later than I anticipated. It was about that time that my other friend (he’ll be Sam) contacted me saying that he was coming down to the city for a concert, and was wondering if I wanted to go with him. It had been months since I had seen him and it was high time we catch up. I said that I wasn’t sure about going to the show, because of my previous arrangement with Daniel and Lisa, but I told him to come over to my house and we could hang out for a while, giving him the opportunity to convince me go to the show. He also wanted to buy just a bit of MXE from me while he was down here; so now all of that is on the table.
	Sam arrived at around 4:00. We smoked some weed, regaled each other with stories of shit we had done since our previous encounter, and discussed the concert. Apparently they were a Grateful Dead cover band (Dark Star Orchestra), and people tend to agree that it’s fairly authentic. Doors were gonna open at 7:00, and at 5:30 I still hadn’t heard from Daniel or Lisa. I decided I would go with Sam, and I could meet Daniel and Lisa back at my house after the concert. Me and Sam each did a nice line of MXE (a substance we both have experience with, although I more than he) and got our stuff together. At 6:00, I took a tiny bump to keep me going until we got to the venue; and we hopped on the subway.

	Navigating Times Square on MXE was kinda difficult, but we got to the venue without trouble and somebody immediately offered me a ticket for $20 when they were $32 at the door. Deal! After a short moment of anxiety at security, we were inside.
	This is of course the time that I got a call from Daniel saying he’s on his way to my house with Lisa and they’re ready to do some mushrooms. After 15 minutes of laborious logistics, we concluded that Lisa and Daniel would waste time until they were bored, and then could get the doorman to let them into my house whenever they needed shelter from the cold. Their faces would be familiar, and I would tell the doorman to be expecting them. I would come home when the concert was over. Everybody was going to get what they wanted. Sam and I walked down the stairs and into the main part of the venue.
	We peeked into the auditorium or whatever you’d call it (It is predominantly a dance floor, but there is also extensive seating), but it was empty, so we headed to the bathroom for another bump. Sam went in, took a piss and a bump; came out, handed me the bag; I went and took a piss and a bump.
	Having gotten ourselves a little wonky for the wait until the show (it was probably 7:30 at this point) we took a seat near the front of the section and got comfortable. No more than five minutes later a young hippie lookin’ dude approached us. He had long, strawberry-blonde hair hanging in idiosyncratic waves down his back, wearing a tye-dye t-shirt and accompanied by a cute girl in a nice dress. She had brown hair, very straight and down to the middle of her back. She was smiling vibrantly. “Hey man, I know this is kind of a longshot, but I lost my wallet with my ID everything, and I just wanna get a beer. I’ll give you some acid if you get me one. I just lost my wallet you know.”
	Wait what? Acid? Shit— “I’m sorry man, we’re not 21," I said apologetically.
We had a momentary interchange about the tragedy of losing a wallet in which he said, and I won’t forget it: “Yeah man. Ya know, I just didn’t want to ask any of the old people for a brew. You guys seemed like you’d be cool.” I said I was sorry I couldn’t help.
	He looked at the girl, and then back at us. “Have a good show guys.” I saw him rip a piece of paper up, and he handed me a ragged strip of it, with no pretense of delineated dosages. I barely even looked at what he had handed me; I just tore it in halfish and gave Sam his share.
	I thanked the dude profusely and asked if he wanted payment of any kind. He said that it was unnecessary, but the girl asked if we had K— I looked at her for a second, assessing the risks, and decided to venture the question. “Do you know what MXE is?”
	“What?”
	“MXE? It’s kinda like K.” I looked at Sam who glared back at me. His face told me I was stupid for saying anything.
	Suddenly the dude turns around and says something along the lines of, “Wait— you have MXE?”
	“Yeah. You know what it is?”
	“Yeah I like that stuff.”
	“Oh shit. Well, ya want some?”
	“Yeah man that’d be awesome. Just a bump. I haven’t done this in a long time.” I proffered the bag, not knowing what exactly to do, seeing as he didn’t want the bump now, but he had no bag. He pulled out a dollar bill. I gauged a big bump off the end of my key and dropped it into his dollar, which he folded up meticulously and put in his pocket.
	We thank each other vociferously and then he left us alone in the seats to figure out what the fuck just happened. There was acid under my tongue, and we had somehow only traded <70 mg of MXE for it. I like to think that the guy got his brew.
	Well, I guess we better head down to the stage.

It was 7:56 when the tabs were placed in my hand and then promptly my mouth. By 8:09 we were down on the dancefloor, we had each just done another bump, and Dark Star Orchestra was starting to play. It was time I light a joint.
I took a few pulls and passed it to Sam, who took his pulls and passed it back. Then an old, friendly looking dude with a balding head and a big beer gut asked politely for a hit. Of course I’d give him a hit; after all what is a concert without sharing? I had just gotten free acid for christ sake! But as soon as he hit the joint, there were two more people asking for some. I took two more hits and gave it to Sam, who then got attacked by several people who wanted weed. He looked at me, asking me what to do with my joint. I guess I said it could go around.
So like 5 random people have hit my joint and the thing’s more than half gone when some annoying asian dude, dancing really energetically and talking enthusiastically, asked for a hit. Oh god what a weirdo. I mean I know he was rolling his face off, but still; he asked in this overly saccharine voice while still waving his arms around gaily, and when I said yes he took the joint like it was a gift from god, turned away from the stage, and crouched down really low to the ground ducking his head, just to take ONE exaggerated hit. He stood back up and handed me my joint, smiling and dancing again, oblivious to the fact that everyone in the vicinity was looking at him.
Now I hit my joint and a kid taps me on my shoulder. Oh I forgot about you. The kid gives me this look of “You gave it to him and you won’t give it to me?” I know he’s right. Plus I had forgotten, he had been one of the first 7 people to ask me. I passed it to him, and he politely took one nice hit and passed it back, knowing that he shouldn’t try his luck.
God! When did weed become such a luxury? We’re at a fucking concert people. Did you not come prepared? How many of these people are weedless? These burnt out hippies trying to relive the glory days, these kids trying to act like they’re part of the original movement, these gay asian dudes— how many of them were weedless?
“Can I have another hit?”
Oh fuck no you can’t rolling asian guy! Not after the embarrassment I suffered from your last hit, not to mention the fact that you’ve seen the joint go to 6 different people, and you probably saw me getting more and more frustrated each time. No you cannot have another fucking hit.
	I looked over at Sam and gestured to get the fuck off the dance floor. I felt like people had been closing in on me. They circled me like hungry zombies. Why was I the only one with this precious gift?
	We made it through the throngs of people as I took the last few precious puffs of my joint, flicking it just as we reached the edge of the crowd.

	It is at this point that I should mention that I am very well versed in RC’s and have done both real LSD, and other drugs sold as acid, so I know when I’m tripping on the real deal. The fact that the tab was tasteless (I did not even know that it was white on white until I spat it out) and did not numb my tongue was a good sign; but it was too early to call it.
	Probably about half an hour after eating that paper I start to feel it building. Even on a decent amount of MXE I can feel my mind beginning expand and speed up. I remember thinking to myself: “If you have to ask yourself if you are on LSD, you probably aren’t. But if you do ask yourself that question, and in the moment it takes to form the sentence “Am I on LSD?”  you have 100 other thoughts before coming back to the question, then you are on LSD.” That is what happened to me back in the seats. I wanted to make sure I was truly on LSD and not any 25x-NBOMe, or even DOx or whatever. I wondered about all the RC’s, then snapped back into my body and realized: Yes, this was fucking LSD.
	After all this time? I have spent years collecting RC’s to add to my list of experiences. I’ve tried so many drugs to see where my brain can go. And now after 6 months or more of eluding me (I don’t go to shows very often), Lucy falls into my lap for free, and blasts all those other numbers and letters out of the fucking water! Even mushrooms. I was reminded why LSD became such a big deal. Because it is a big fucking deal. Now I must make it clear that I am not renouncing my enthusiasm for other psychedelics, they all have their place and time, but LSD is the bees knees.
	So there I was back in the seats, listening to a convincing impression of The Grateful Dead, coming up on what I would already tell was a solid dose of acid, and still rocked from the accumulated MXE. This is not what I expected to be doing tonight.
	Colors began become incredibly vibrant. Everything was made of fluttering, rainbow colored, candy light. I had gotten good acid for free! And plenty of it. The awesomeness of the situation hit me again.
	I know we both did a few more bumps the course of the show, but I can’t remember when because I kept the blood level pretty consistent, not letting myself come down, but not getting too much more dissociated.
	I don’t remember much of a timeline in general for the next hour. Between 8:40 and 9:40 I was just on some random concert adventure. But I can pick out some memorable details.
I remember thinking about how well this Dark Star Orchestra represented very well both of my parents’ (who were both real hippies back in the day) view of The Dead. My dad always said that their music was good but that their concerts were amazing. And when Dark Star Orchestra got going, they jammed the fuck out as I can imagine the Dead having done. The guitarist and the keyboardist making my me smile to the ceiling under the sun of their sounds. The drummer kept my foot tapping. The bassist made purse my lips, lower my eyelids, and pump my neck in time.
But when they weren’t in full stride, or the stride wasn’t that elegant, I understood my mom’s view of The Dead, “It’s good until it doesn’t stop.” I found myself getting impatient. There was one part where they would shout “Oh, mama! Can this really— be the end?” and drop straight back into a jam. And it was cool the first 3 times, because I really didn’t know when it was going to end. Sam and I even ran down to the dancefloor to participate in the festivities, the acid having electrified us with life. Plus we actually thought the first set was coming to an end. But the jams in between were decently long, and they repeated the line well over 5 times. Stuck Inside a Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again took like 25 minutes for them to play. By the end I was really fucking sick of it.
During all of that mess I decided I want to smoke the other joint I brought, to level out the acid, and because I thought we had to go home soon. I looked over at Sam and we exchanged a silent glance that immediately established that we were both on the same page. It was time to go up to the seats to do another bump of MXE and smoke a joint.
We decided to go all the way up to the nosebleed seats this time, to get a little space to ourselves. Boy, what a good move that was. It was so refreshing to be up there. We had our own area to exist in, away from the strange mix of that came to see Dead covers.
We tried to talk, but failed due to the volume of the music and our drug addled attention spans. Sam was pretty out of it. He couldn’t find the MXE in the stash spot of his Grassroots hat, and he began looking more frantically. I looked at him aghast. “You didn’t lose it; did you?”
“I know it’s in there,” he said, and hands me the hat. I dig my hands into the little pocket but came up dry. However the flap felt weird and I wasn’t convinced I had done a good job searching. He took back the hat and stuck his fingers deep inside. After a moment he smiled and pulls his fingers out clutching the small baggy. We both nod in approval.
It seemed like that took forever. Had we gotten sidetracked along the way? With the bag in my hand I remembered what had been my plan so long ago: to take a bump of MXE and then smoke a joint. I promptly took a nice scoop with my key and set my right nostril about the task of absorbing it while I lit the joint that had been waiting patiently behind my ears for like 10 minutes now.
What a relaxing joint it was. I was just sitting in a relatively comfortable chair like the ones in movie theatres, watching the lights and feeling the vibes of the crowd; and smoking a joint. The music had chilled out. They lightened the tone and eased the tension that the Stuck Inside a Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again had created by overstaying its welcome. We timed this sesh well.