They arrived early, despite the music falling on a Monday. They came young and old, despite two of the three co-headlining bands dating back to the ancient 1990s. And they showed up largely unmasked despite the lack of vaccine requirements.
In short, Minnesota fans were hella-excited for the Hella Mega Tour, the biggest rock show in the Twin Cities this summer.
Finally pulling into Target Field a year later than planned, the four-band, 5 ½-hour rock concert seemed to knock all the worries and woes of 2020-2021 out of Target Field like a home run when Nelson Cruz still played for the Twins.
From the moment opening band the Interrupters took the stage at 5:30 p.m. — ahead of (in order) Weezer, Fall Out Boy and Green Day — the capacity concert crowd of more than 35,000 fans looked outwardly enthused and seemed blissfully unconcerned about COVID worries.
"How many of you are at your first concert of the year?" the Interrupters' Kevin Bivona asked as the hot sun bore down on the stage in center field.
The grassy field, almost completely covered in rubber flooring, was the one thing tightly masked at the event. Even the Interrupters set had fans join in chorus with their snippets of Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" and Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It."
Giant video screens and a well-tuned mega-sized sound system extended out of the stage, reminding even the nosebleed-seat fans that Minneapolis' MLB stadium is still leagues above its NFL stadium as a concert venue.
The acoustics were buoyed further by Monday's many singalong moments. This concert was loaded with enough radio hits for a Time Life box set — and with a retro hard-rock vibe like a flashback to 1988's Monster of Rock concert at the Metrodome.
