This was my first concert. I was fifteen years old, a freshman in high school. Despite being the proverbial “goody two shoes,” so much of this show is hazy in my memory (which I suspect will be a prevailing theme of this feature). Apparently, the show was postponed as the date on the ticket does not correspond with dates I have found on the internet.
Adam had just gone solo. Granted “Friend or Foe” was kind of lame, but I loved Adam Ant. I made Adam Ant t-shirts and posters. I’d ride my bike down to Magnolia Thunderpussy Record on the OSU campus and buy fanzines and buttons. I was a superfan, an AntPerson. (“AntMusic for SexPeople! SexMusic for Antpeople!”) I watched MTV for hours waiting for their videos to come on. That’s why Adam Ant would deign to come to Columbus: MTV. Columbus, Ohio, so typical in every way, is a test market city. And because the heart of Ohio is painfully normal, it gets to sample to wares of corporate America first. Cable TV, sour cream potato chips, the McRib: America doesn’t get to enjoy these fruits of capitalism until places like Columbus, Ohio say it’s okay. Columbus had interactive television in 1977. Sometimes being behind the times puts you ahead of everyone else.
My dad got his secretary to buy the tickets and it looks like she did a great job. I was in the 13th row and as an added bonus I was accompanied by the most beautiful girl in all of Ohio. Her name was Lauren and she would go on to become a model. She was also my pseudo-aunt and uncle’s daughter – my pseudo-cousin – and basically in exchange for a ticket she was babysitting me. My parents wouldn’t let me go to the show without a chaperone. Of course, I had a huge crush on her. In my memory, I was in seventh grade for this show, but that obviously is not the case. Memory can be so kind. Being in 7th grade and having a hot high school chaperone is lot cooler than being in 9th grade and requiring one.
INXS opened the show. I was pretty into them too. Everyone stood for their entire set, which Lauren said rarely ever happened for an opening band. They would have been playing tunes from their megahit album “Shabooh Shoobah.” Michael Hutchence moved around the stage with reptilian grace. I thought I was seeing my generation’s Jim Morrison. Maybe if he’d committed suicide ten years earlier, I’d think of him that way now. Instead, he’s just an answer in my own game of personal pop trivia.
Adam Ant put on a great show, although in my eyes it would have been hard for him not to. He played several songs made famous with the Ants and Marco Pirroni, the Ants’ guitarist and Adam’s c0-songwriter, was still with him, so as far as I was concerned it might as well have been an Adam and the Ants show. A review by Jon Pareles in the New York Times from that era would wonder if the “irony seems lost on Mr. Ant’s audience.” Indeed, I suspect it was lost on me. It would be another year before I would cloak myself in the black trenchcoat of unrepentant sarcasm.
Adam Ant exuded sex, making the girls swoon, but it didn’t look like he really wanted it, which I suppose is the very definition of sexy: we can’t help but desire those who don’t desire us. On that note, I’m sure I went home that night pining for Lauren, my mind filled with impossible dreams. But more than anything, as my head hit the pillow, I remember my ears buzzing for the first time – from Pirroni’s guitar, from the girls’ screams – and I could hardly wait to see to see another band live.
and, not aging quite so well, from INXS, just a few months later:
I Hesitate to Say that You’re a Liar
When I see bands that I loved back in the 80s and 90s sometimes I feel like I’m walking into a house of mirrors full of aging hipsters, clinging to the remnants of their youth. Am I one of them? While I don’t have any tattoos, sideburns or a job in computers, in a demographic sense, who am I kidding? We’re the same. These are my people … Thankfully, after a silly and pointless debate about China, my friend and I arrived late, saving me from looking directly into the faces of my contemporaries, but I couldn’t help but feel my mortality reflected in the bald heads bobbing throughout the crowd. Rock is about sex and vibrancy and danger and this aged sausage factory felt as daring as an early wake-up call for the farmer’s market. Yes, I’m not particularly enthralled with this notion of getting older. But, in the end, it’s not them, it’s me. I get that, I just don’t like to be reminded of it. At least, not last night.
I realize that I’m projecting my own issues on my generation. Apparently, I am brimming with self-contempt and I can barely stand the idea of getting older. And the fact is that Sebadoh’s performance was irrelevant to my own psycho-drama. While Matador 21 and Pavement’s reunion of last year felt celebratory and like a triumph, last night left me cold, aching for a transcendence that never came, which is perhaps asking too much of Sebadoh, a band I’ve always loved more with my head than with my heart. They are by their nature neurotic and introspective, never quite achieving that blissful guitar-crunching release, of say, Dinosaur Jr. They are not designed to take you out of yourself, but to wallow in your own muck. And that’s what I did last night. Still, it should be noted that the band sounded great. They were crisp and clean, each instrument popping. They’re pros now, masters of their teenage material (III will be twenty in March!), paradoxically evolving as musicians while simultaneously undermining their initial muddy appeal. There used to be something gloriously messy and unfinished about Sebadoh and while they look disheveled in their matching black t-shirts, I couldn’t help but feel like I would have benefited greatly from a bit less clarity and lot more confusion.
Let Me Take Your Skull for a Ride
It’s always dangerous chasing the dragon, trying to recapture the magic of the past. It never works out quite right. The present just can’t compete with the sweet haze of nostalgia. With that in mind, it’s been fourteen years since I last saw Sebadoh at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles in 1997 (and before that, I saw them at the Roxy in 1994 and 96). I’m not bragging, because the truth is I don’t remember any of those shows. In place of my memory, all I have is the ticket stubs, and I’ll have to trust their word. While initially disconcerting, in a way, it’s sort of comforting being unburdened by memory. So, tonight, when I see Sebadoh at Neumo’s in Seattle, I’ll be free of the past. It’ll be like the first time all over again, which, after all, must have been pretty good since I’ve already tried to recapture that feeling at least twice already.
Lift-off
Not quite sure where this blog is going, but Reigning Sound’s instant classic “Stick it to Me” seems like a fine soundtrack to begin the ride.
lonesomebeehive 