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My First Concert

Thompson Twins Here's To Future
Source: Fair Use

In January of 1986 I was 16 and had a drivers license. My mom would let me borrow the family car and I found myself driving my friends everywhere. Since I had no job, I don’t remember how I managed, but my best friend and I had tickets to see the Thompson Twins that January. Although I had gone to many DJ’d dances, it was my first concert and I had no idea what to expect.

 

We got there late due to a high maintenance best friend. I’m looking at old archived information and they say OMD opened, but I have no memory of that so we might’ve completely missed them. It was an all GA venue and we were nowhere near the front, but it was so packed I could pick my feet up off of the floor and get moved around by the crowd. My friend and I were almost immediately separated.

Although I liked the Thompson Twins, they were by no means my favorite band and I still have a hard time remembering the name of the band from this first concert (I had to do some serious digging to find it when I wrote this), but it was the experience that I remember. It was exhilarating and I find myself still chasing that high.

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I Woke-up to the World

In 2009 I had major surgery with an extended recovery with plenty of the good drugs and found myself watching much further into the season of American Idol than I usual did (I previously only to watched to see Simon yell at all of the delusional “contestants”). Then one day I saw Adam Lambert sing Ring of Fire. I couldn’t believe I was actually watching American Idol. It was so… so… raw and to my drug-addled brain, had kind of 80’s-punk feel that hooked me.

Over the next few weeks I realized his home-town was the same town in which I was currently living, and that American Idol sent certain contestants on a “hometown tour”. By that point I was only a few weeks out of surgery, but I was recovering pretty well and came to the realization that I was well enough to go to the radio station which was part of the “tour”.

It was a realization or maybe even a revelation. I could leave home and do something on my own without my family. It might sound weird, but I was in a place with young kids where they were finally out of the house during the mornings and they weren’t dependent on me during that time.

When I got to the station there were hundreds of other people there but there were a few of us started talking to each other. After we watched him go from the car to the radio station door and 30 minutes later back again to the car, we got together and drove to his next location.

Later, one of those girls and I started hanging out together and a friendship was formed that still persists to this day. And, in a weird twist of fate, we found out later that we both showed up in a picture in People Magazine (as fans in the crowd) in a picture featuring Adam Lambert  on that fateful day outside the radio station.

I hadn’t had a friend that was free to hang out and do fun things on the spur of the moment in years. With my “adult” friends, I had to plan lunch weeks in advance which is honestly really draining after a while. This friend and I started doing a lot together and realized we had a lot in common. I re-experienced music in a new way… like I was in high school again. I realized that new music didn’t suck like “old people” always say, they just weren’t open to it. There is tons of fantastic music everywhere. I don’t like all of it, but I’ve found lots of music that I really, REALLY like!

So now she’s my partner-in-crime and most of the concerts I go to are with her, although I’ve been known to go by myself or take other family members. I’ve always wanted to write about our adventures so here it goes…