vibration in a new key, upwards

October 4th, 1984. Cleveland, Ohio. The Fixx.

This was my first show. Technically, calling it "my first show" is a bit of a misnomer, as I'm not including the shows my parents took me to (of which I remember seeing Kenny Rogers, and also Lionel Richie w/ Tina Turner opening),  but the first show that I got to go to on "my own" was The Fixx on their 1984 "Phantoms" tour  stop in Cleveland, a distant 45-minute car ride from our Akron suburb. "My own" actually meant that my best friend Melanie and I had conspired to successfully persuade our parents to drive us up to the show - her parents drove us up and mine drove us back, if I remember correctly. I don't remember if we had to bring him or if he was invited, but Mel's little brother was also coming with us to the show. But still, we get to go to the show all by ourselves!  We were both fifteen, and this was the coolest thing in the world - we are going to a show!

BY OURSELVES (and little brother, but whatever)!

I remember we got to the show, say goodbye to the parents and the three of us unload ourselves from the minivan and wade cautiously into the throng of people huddling in front of the doors of the grand Music Hall.

I've got my ticket in hand, Mel has hers, and her brother..her brother. Wait, where's your ticket?  

What do you mean, you lost your ticket?

Somewhere from the handing out of tickets in the backseat and walking ten steps into the throng, little brother lost his ticket. Oh crap. Now what? No cell phones in 1984. I can already hear my mom: "I said you aren't old enough to go" after she hears about this - not sure what his losing his ticket had to do with my age, but still, she'll say something, I'm sure of it. This is bad. What are we going to do? Mel and I are not happy. Mel is furious, in fact. Still, we can't leave him out front in the cold and go to the show by ourselves. But if we pool our money, we can buy him another ticket. But if we buy another ticket, he'll be sitting somewhere totally different than us, which defies the "You three stay together" rule laid down by the parents. Speaking of, what are they going to say when they find out he lost his ticket? We dread facing them. Hi kids, how was the show? You look cold. Were you standing outside long?

What do you mean, you lost your ticket?

 Oh yes, this will end our concert-going days, fer sure, like totally!

I can't remember if we cooked up this solution ourselves or if some veteran show goer or a worker person helped us out, but  we figured out we could go ahead and buy him another ticket, then he could sit with us in his originally assigned seat and all would be well. We were still totally upset at his uncoolness and the fact that the replacement ticket cost one of us a Fixx t-shirt. But at least we had a plan, and no one needed to freeze outside or miss the show. And thank god, the show wasn't sold out. We headed over to the ticket window and bought little brother a replacement ticket.

We then make our way to our seats, little brother and his balcony ticket in tow, then settle in and check out the surroundings. Cute guy alert! Two boys - sitting right near us. They are talking to us! We lie and tell them we are 16. I remember they asked us if we liked The Smiths. Of course, yes, we love The Smiths! (And made a mental note to find out about this Smiths band, because these older boys who were talking to us were super cute and cool and were at a Fixx show, and The Smiths were from the UK, so what else did we need to know?) It was all a bit thrilling, this going to a show business, and the show hadn't even started yet. And then the show started.

I can't remember who opened for The Fixx that night, but I do remember that I was thoroughly impressed by The Fixx and I loved the show. And I loved the cute boys who flirted with us at the show. And I knew I needed to go to another show.

I don't remember if we ever told our parents about little brother's missing ticket.

Here's a video from a different night on the same 1984 tour.

I guess I missed out on the zombification whozamawhatsits, but whatever it was all about, I have survived with brain intact. (That's what I get for my scattershot attempts at keeping up-to-date in LJ land, apparently)

Here's my take on last night's show:

The Police show last night made me happy. Not as happy as I would have been had I been allowed to see them on the Synchronicity tour at age 13? 14?, (my hopes were kiboshed by the "parental units" on that one) but considering there were no albums after that one*, I can't imagine the show would have been too drastically different (although maybe I would have heard "Tea in the Sahara" back then).

* Not including the greatest hits with the re-recording of "Don't Stand So Close to Me"

Setlist is here, along with a link to a couple unenthusiastic reviews. From a sound standpoint, both K and Larry said the low end was pretty sucktastic - we didn't pay $200 for our tickets, and I felt like their performance was worth the $30 per guy I paid to spend a couple hours with them. I had a good time, and that was all I was looking for. K was a trooper; we didn't know if he was going with us as he's been sick for the last few days, but we cajoled him into going and I think he was glad he went.

The Police is one of those bands that I used to really like a lot, but I almost never listen to them anymore, so it was kind of strange to be sitting there, singing along word-for-word to all these songs...I kind of marvelled at myself for remembering them, and then tried to remember if I was a HUGE Police fan when I was fangirly about so many other acts in high school. Apparently so :) I always did love Sting's lyrics, though, and was reminded of how much I learned from tracking down the myriad references that peppered his writing.

Highlights for me:
- "Invisible Sun"
- "When the World is Running Down"
- "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic"
- "Can't Stand Losing You"
- The fact that I was finally watching The Police - Live!
- No drunken jerks in our section

A gratifying and satisfactory concert-going experience all in all, for me at least, and an absolutely perfect night for an outdoor show. Not the best, far from the worst, and glad to have seen them live at last.

The Posies ROCKED last night at Slim's. It was one of those typically untypical evenings for K and I. We arrived in time to catch most of the second opener band's set (Oranger) -- K went to get a drink and came back saying, "You're never going to guess who's here"--turned out that Adam, one of the hosts of the G4TV (formerly techtv) show "X-Play", was at the club. I told K I wanted to find him to say hello; it's one of those shows that's fairly obscure, so I figured Adam would be pleased to know that grown-ups watch the show too ;) We tracked him down and I caught up with him as he went out to have to smoke - Adam was pleasantly surprised and was glad I said Hi - we talked about the show for a little while -- they used to be in SF, but the show moved to LA about a year or so ago. I confessed that we hadn't been watching it as much since the LA move, but Adam assured me that it had gotten a lot better -- he said, "you gotta see this week's show - we've got a robot theme, and I die at the end; I'm trying to set it up so I die at the end of every show -- I want to have a whole resurrection thing going on."

I met his girlfriend as well, who had dragged him to the show. She and I compared Posienotes and she mentioned that I had to check out the New Pornographers album, which I promised to do. We then went back inside, whereupon I introduced K to Adam and promised that the show would end back upon the TIVO list. So, that pretty much set the tone of the evening, and the Posies hadn't even gotten started yet.

I've been a fan of the Posies since 1990, when I was working at a record store that was much like the one in "High Fidelity" (but cds). Dear 23 appeared in the monthly promo mailer from Geffen; I threw it into the CD player and was completely enamoured of it within about 30 seconds. That cd was in constant rotation at the store for at least a month. I was doing some writing for a local music paper, and did a review of the album. A couple months later, my editor called and said, "hey, that band you like is playing at the Empire in Cleveland - do you want to review the show?" I was like, "Do I!" -- I went to the show, met with their A&R guy, who asked me before the show, "do you want to meet the band?" Uh.Of course. So he took me back to the green room, where I met the guys - they had a copy of my review and were thrilled with the review. I, of course, was thrilled with the album - we chatted for a while and then they went out to do their set. Afterwards, we sat and talked with Ken and Jon for a long time, and promised to keep in touch...which Ken and I have, for nearly 15 years now. So now, a Posies show is a chance to watch old friends and they are *always* a great time. Their roadie, Joe, was there as well, who I've also known for ages, so it was great catching up with him as well.

The show was fantastic! Great mix of old and new songs; they still rock way better than most -- if you get a chance to catch them on this tour, you really should. I ended up on stage for the encore. When you're in the audience, and your friend is talking to the crowd, asking people to come on up onstage, and he's sitting there looking directly at you while he's saying it, well, you tend to get the hint. So, there I was along with others, singing along and grooving along with Ken, Jon and the rest of the guys. I'll see if some pix surface. K was having the time of his life, as he had gone a couple rum and cokes over the line, and ended up having his last few drinks pilfered by Ken during the show.

So anyway, we hung out after the show til almost 2, met some more cool people who live here in SF that we'll hook up with for coffee, and then went home completely wired. We didn't get to bed until after 4 - it was one of those nights that happen far too infrequently when one has a 8-5 gig, like K and I do these days.

Of course, the alarm didn't go off and we overslept - I just rolled in about an hour ago. I've got the setlist at home; I'll put it up tonight.

What a fun night; I needed that.

We went to LA this weekend, and ran into Alanis Morissette on the way down. She and her band were on our flight from SFO to LAX, and our flight was delayed; she was just hanging around the gate waiting like everyone else. K encouraged me to go say hi; so i went over and thanked her for her last record. we talked very briefly, i didn't want to impose any more than I already had, but she was extremely gracious and pleasant. It was really cool. I was grateful to have the opportunity to thank her in person, in a non-meet/greet or industry setting. And mad props to the best husband in the world, who encourages me to do things that I used to only imagine doing in my head, then regret not doing them later....off to bed.