Veronica, Chrissie and I had arrived fashionably to Rock in the Park at 6:47. Our late lunch may have turned in to a few post-lunch drinks. Veronica and I had Chrissie in a bit of a buzz and we were quite pleased with ourselves. "Brian told me, to tell you two that our passes were at the gate." Chrissie said as we waited in line at the barricade set up near the edge of the park.

"What do the passes do?" Veronica wanted to know.

"They're band passes so we drink for free." I told her.

"Oh god. We shouldn't have given Chrissie that last cocktail in that case." Veronica said, rather wide-eyed.

"It's early! She'll be fine." I promised her. The park was already well crowded with plenty other people in line at the gate. Technically, one could have arrived at the park by 5:00 and listened to bands until midnight. Chrissie, Veronica and I were the smart ones who didn't get here before 7:00. Freddie and the boys were scheduled to go on at 8:30 with their set wrapping up at 9:15. The air on this early evening was crisp and quite refreshing; the air moving slightly, rustling what was left of the leaves in the trees that dotted the park. The line was moving faster than we had anticipated much to our delight. Veronica couldn't keep her hands out of Chrissie's thick curls at the bottom of her hair. I had to snicker because it was so very affectionate.

"What are you doing?" Chrissie asked.

"I'm just gettin' you all warmed up. This is what it's like when John plays with my hair." Veronica explained, giving Chrissie's soft hair a shake.

"Are you serious?" Chrissie asked, looking over her shoulder at Veronica.

"Well, of course." Veronica said.

"Lucky." She mumbled at Veronica as the line moved forward. As we waited for the next attendant, we could hear the current bands' set list. It was hard to tell much of what was going on behind the entry gates except for the buzzing around the band associated vehicles that surrounded the south end of the park. Each band had a reserved parking spot in the grass and to all the boys, this was a big deal because it put the name of each individual band in everyone's faces. In fact, the general public could pass by each convoy, some parking areas much more elaborately arranged than others. It was rather obvious as to which bands were the most experienced just by looking at their arrangements in the parking spaces. The bands with the larger vans or flatbed trucks, with tarp tents to accompany their rigs were the most established. The bands that showed up in a truck or van and little else, had the least performance experience. As for Roger and the rest of the boys? They had arrived in the van, with little else aside from the sign in front of their space. RESERVED BAND 9: QUEEN. The fact that they had even managed to get the ninth spot had been nothing short of a miracle. The show was setup in that the most anticipated bands would be performing toward the end of the evening and there were twelve spots.

We were next to go through the gates after only waiting briefly. "Hi we have passes reserved?" Veronica stated, questioningly.

"Which band?" the woman asked, picking up her clipboard.

"Queen." Veronica said, watching the woman take the highlighter to the board.

"Ah! Here we go. Three passes?" she asked. Veronica nodded as she handed them over.

"Hospitality area is behind the stage. You'll see it immediately on your left. Have fun tonight." The woman said, as Veronica passed our wristbands back. We didn't take twelve steps behind the makeshift gates setup at the edge of the park when we immediately saw the stage setup the opposite end of where we were. The crowd was terrific, a lot of turnout tonight. As we walked into the scattered sea of people, the current band so obviously well into their set list, we took in the sights around us. Food, liquor, beer, hot cocoa and the festival's iconic spiked apple cider were being served to the right of the stage. Aside from what was being sold anything else you wanted could be bummed from someone nearby; everything from a cigarette to a toke of weed. The stage was blocked off on one side with the other side being controlled by security and a gate in the fence. The term security was used loosely.

"That's where go in!" Veronica pointed ahead of her. I could feel my heart beginning to race because this was incredible. The atmosphere was electricity. The people here in attendance...were beautiful...well most of them anyway. I had never seen so many guys with long hair in one place. We could see smoke faintly rising from behind the stage, where a bonfire had been stated. I don't even know if a fire was legal in the park, but tonight there were two...one behind the stage and one toward the back of the crowd. No one was doing anything to stop these bonfires from getting bigger.

"Oh my god!" I said, slapping Chrissie in the shoulder and pointing to a group of women in front of me and to the left of the stage. I prided myself in being able to keep my clothes on in public and these women apparently had trouble keeping their clothes all since all eight of them had lost their shirts somewhere. Chrissie gasped.

"My god! Those girls are half naked!" Chrissie said, stating the obvious and she was exactly right. Despite the fact that it was mid-November and these girls were nowhere near the bonfires, they had no reservations with being topless. In fact, as you looked around there was no shame in mostly-naked public affection or the hiding of it behind a tree.

"Well, Chrissie, if these people can be naked there's no reason you can't. Now, I'm just takin' a guess here, but that would probably get Brian's attention."

"I am not doing that!" she said to me, probably louder than she should have. "I can't believe women would just...oh there goes another top." Chrissie said. It was no secret that sex was in the air tonight but as far as Chrissie was concerned, there was no way in hell she would be doing that.

"Come on, let's go behind the stage and check things out. We still have plenty of time before they go on and the free cider is back there." Veronica said, tilting her head toward the gated off area.

"Hey, come on. We're goin' behind the stage to the hospitality area. I said to Chrissie, who was taking in everything around her. Honestly, she was starstruck and it was charming. She looked up at the band on that stage as if she had never seen something so grand in all her life. I don't think any of us knew what was in store tonight and we didn't care. But Chrissie? Well, she had this dreamy, swept away look that made her glow...and I promise, it wasn't the cocktail glow either. We followed Veronica to the gates where she flashed her wristband, pointing to us behind her. Once behind the main stage, I realized that yes, the people here tonight were gorgeous but the men behind this stage waiting to go on tonight were quite possibly the most beautiful in England and the women who were with them looked like they had been ripped out of a mail-order clothing catalog. I stared like a complete idiot for a moment at what surrounded us. Chrissie and Veronica were staring as badly as I.

"Oh my god! Your Levi's are simply divine!" One of the barely dressed women said to me as she passed our little group.

"Uh...oh! Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!" I said. And she was right, my burgundy flared, Levi's were kind of magical in their own way. I didn't know what else to say, I was still shocked. We could only assume that the boys we had come here for were somewhere around the van. I felt a tapping on my shoulder.

"These...these people are...these people are the sexiest people I've ever seen!" Chrissie said, squeezing my shoulder.

"And your boyfriend is one of them...apparently." I reminded her. We could see where the second bonfire was alive and well, though not as big as the one we had seen on our way into the park.

"Hey there. I'm Kurt. You ladies have cider?" he asked us. I didn't know who the hell Kurt was but he almost made me forget that I had a Roger somewhere. I laughed so stupidly that even I was embarrassed for myself. I quickly pulled myself together and flipped my hair back from my face, clearing my throat.

"No! No, Kurt we don't have any." I said. Veronica had the dumbest smile I'd ever seen plastered on her face.

"Here! Here, girls. Take these. I can get more where this came from. Enjoy!" he said, before leaving us. All three of us turned to watch him walk away.

"Shit. My god...I am filled with the filthiest of thoughts right now." Veronica admitted to us.

"If things don't work out with Brian, I want him to tear my panties to shreds." Chrissie said.

"Yeah....yeah, let's go with that." I said, sipping the cider. "The cider's not bad either." I said, handing over the nearly spilling over paper cups.

"Okay, okay we can't get...sidetracked. We need to get some extra cider and go see what bands are here. I mean, my god look at all those people around the reserved vehicle spots. And the three of us agreed that we needed to do exactly that because the longer we stood here, we were bound to become bombarded by more beautiful, lonely, rockers who just so happened to wander our way.