First concerts: Thanks for the mezzanines

The idiots in the crowd
See, first concert, like life, ain’t always fair.  Some people remember more about the jerks around them, than the performers they paid their whole allowance to see.  John remembers a woman and her young son playing with fire during one of Elvis’ last hurrahs.  “She would hold up her lighter during like, ‘Love Me Tender’ and then the little boy would blow it out,” recalls John, laughing at the memory.  “Well, she wasn’t going to have that brat ruining her Elvis buzz so she adjusted the flame to be really high.  The next time he tried to blow it out, he nearly singed his eyebrows off.”  Cell phones have since replaced lighters as the light-up symbol of crowd devotion, which is kind of a shame because you can’t burn your kid with a cell phone. 

My friend Doug went from euphoria to terror in the blink of an eye thanks to the headbangers who were sitting in front of him at an ELO concert in New Jersey in the late ’70s.  “I had taken a bunch of great photos with my mother’s Kodak Instamatic,” he says, “but while I was jumping up and down in excitement, my camera flew out of my jacket pocket and hit this mulleted rocker chick in front of us on the head, then smashed on the ground and popped open, exposing the film.”  Doug looks like he could cry at the very thought of it.  “The girl was crying and really mad at me, like I did it on purpose, and her boyfriend kept turning around to give me the evil eye,” he says.  “Here it was, my first concert, my favorite rock group in the world. I had no pictures and two strangers were going to kick my ass as soon as the lights go up.  It was devastating.” 

Doug fled the arena during the encore in fear, not even stopping to buy a T-shirt, which everyone will tell you is a key ingredient of the first concert experience.  “My Go-Gos Vacation Tour T-shirt was like a badge of honor to me,” asserts Darren.  “I wore it so much that it eventually just disintegrated.” 

The power of the T-shirt
I can relate to that because the most vivid and cherished memory I have of my Benatar outing was indeed T-shirt related.  I bought a shirt at the show that said “Crimes of Passion” on the back and proudly wore it to school.  There was a bad boy who sat behind me in history class named Dwayne who was always cool to me, even though I was a goody-goody and he was a pot-smoking, sex-having rebel.  One day, Dwayne spent one entire class period writing different crimes of passion in the block letters on my back in ink, like in the letter “I” he wrote, “Incest.”  Charming, right?  Yet, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t an erotic experience.  I knew I would have to turn it inside out to get through the rest of the school day without incident, but it was a small price to pay to have the charismatic school bad boy pay that much attention to me.  

And while we’re on the subject of rebellion, no discussion of first concert experiences would be complete without mentioning something that came up in more stories than not: the unmistakable smell of pot smoke.  No concert arena seemed immune to it, not even the stage where Laura Branigan performed at the World’s Fair in New Orleans in the mid-’80s.  “My mom didn’t want me to go because she was afraid I’d smell pot there,” recalls Shane.  “And then I did!  I felt so debauched.  It was like, ‘Yes!’  Now, every time I hear that song ‘Gloria’ I feel a little natural high.”

Occasionally, the shows themselves can deliver that same high — when the distracting external elements fall away and all that remains is the connection between the artist on stage and you. My friend Brett saw Scandal open for Billy Idol in Pittsburgh in the early ’80s. “The place was packed and energy in the room was popping,” he says, eagerly setting the scene. “I remember how funky and edgy all the other fans were compared to nerdy me and my little friend Michelle.  So we ended up pretty close the stage and at one point Patty Smyth knelt down while she was singing and reached out to shake hands with people.”  At this point, Brett closes his eyes wistfully, and I’ll admit I’m starting to feel a bit jealous.  “So I thrust my hand up.  I had to really reach, reach, reach, and then I felt her grasp it!”  Brett’s eyes snap open.  “Then I looked up and she was smiling and singing right at my ninth grade self!”  Brett sighs at the memory, then smiles.  “I think of that every time I hear ‘The Warrior’!”

Big whoop, I think.  It’s not like she wrote the word “Incest” on his back.

Dennis Hensley is the author of the books “Misadventures in the (213)” and “ Screening Party” and is a co-host of the radio show, Twist.   www.dennishensley.com

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