In the college years between '83 and '87, many bands came through town. Some I saw (Chicago, Lou Reed, George Carlin) , most I didn't. One fun night was a group of us going to the Providence Civic Center for Billy Joel on his Innocent Man tour...
Ok, outside of the Police, you can tell I was not the "hippest cat". The Violent Femmes did come to play on campus though! The school held a "Draw a Violent Femme" contest. The winner got an album (a real old fashioned vinyl one) and tickets to the show. I won! I cartooned a mangled teddy bear with an evil grinned little girl standing over holding a knife behind her back. I was stupid and gave the tickets away.The biggest tour to hit town was Springsteen's Born in the USA. My friend J.P. and I anxiously waited to hear when tickets would go an sale. Remember, this was before internet, etc. and we got info from FM radio, newpaper or constantly calling the box office. When they finally did, it was during a heavy exam week and my "close" friends kept the news from me. They knew I would blow off studying and taking the tests to go wait on line.
We never got tickets. The night of the show, J.P and I walked down to the Civic Center hoping to find a nice scalper willing to sell 2 seats for the $25.00 dollars we had in our pockets at the time. We didn't of course and ended up pressing our ears to a back door and pretty sure we could hear the crowd roar and "Born in the USA" begin to play.
Years from now, I think I'll tell the story like an 80's movie that ends with J.P. and I in a crazy series of adventures. We pretend to be roadies, but carrying a huge speaker I accidentally knock out guitarist "Miami" Steve . Disguising himself, J.P. takes over for him that night and plays a great set. He gets caught but it's all OK when I expose a corrupt agent from Bruce's recording company and save his career!
The credits roll dissolving into a scene of Bruce and the whole E street band playing at my birthday party.
Geez, what was wrong with me? I never saw nuthin', ever! I think that if I had to do it all over again, I MIGHT leave the six block radius of RISD.
ReplyDeleteI never pictured you as a Billy Joel fan. Now, I'm not going to be able to see you without picturing you driving in your car, singing "Uptown Girl" at the top of your lungs. My ears, my ears!
ReplyDeleteHey, maybe we should add that to our list for our knitting parody film. Might I suggest, Uptown Purl?
I'll have you know that Christopher Cross was awesome. Hope and I sang along to all the hits!
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