Show
Notes, Volume 1: The Eighties
By
S J Holetz
The other day I was
thinking about a great concert I attended sometime back in ‘91 or ’92,
but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out exactly when
it took place. I went on the interwebs in
order to dig a little deeper, and to my surprise found absolutely
nothing about the show in question. And
so it was that I decided to list all the concerts I have attended right
here, along with a few notes about what made each show memorable, in
order
to create a record of some of the excellent, if ephemeral, musical
entertainment I’ve witnessed. If your memory is better than mine, or
you notice that
I made a mistake, please let a brother know and I’ll add it to the
account.
Night Ranger w/
Black N Blue
Jackson County Expo Hall
Medford OR
Sat 9/22/84
The first real concert I
attended. Fun show, shared with good friends.
Hilarious moment, when one of the chaperoning fathers got caught
surprised while singing along to Black
N Blue: “Wicked! Bitch! What did he just say?”
The Tubes
Civic Auditorium
Portland OR
Sun 8/14/85
Gord and I hit this one on a
trip to Portland to buy school clothes before our senior year. On display were great versions of "Talk To Ya Later"
and "Sushi Girl". Just one highlight of a great
week.
Oingo Boingo & The Untouchables
Freeborn Hall UCD
Davis CA
Sun 2/23/86
Another great gig with Gord, as we rolled to Sac to hang with our
friend Bill, and check out this show and another featuring Goth group Specimen
the night before. I still have the vinyl from glam opening act Macabre Shocks, whose tune “My Girl
and Whiskey” spent the summer in heavy rotation
on my turntable. Oingo
rocked a packed house, tight and energetic as always. “Who Do You Want
To Be” was scorching.
R.E.M. w/
Guadalcanal Diary
EMU Ballroom
Eugene OR
Thu 10/2/86
The first of several
shows I caught while attending the University of Oregon. Guadalcanal Diary opened, but I
don’t remember much about them.
R.E.M.’s set was notable for the several deep album cuts
from Life’s Rich
Pageant, such as 'Underneath the Bunker" and "Flowers of Guatamala",
very cool. The show ended oddly though, as one of the fans in front
appeared to make a grab for Michael Stipe’s
top hat. Stipe promptly stopped
singing, glared at the fan for a full minute, then stormed off
the stage, leaving Peter Buck and Mike Mills to finish the song with a
befuddled
“Uhhh…Thank you. Goodnight.”
Slayer
w/ Overkill
Pine St Theatre
Portland OR
Sat 11/1/86
This was one infamous
evening, as I borrowed a buddy’s van and cruised the hundred plus miles
to Portland, joined by fellow metalhead
Bart.
We shotgunned several beers a piece in the
van prior to entering the club to check out Overkill, who was most memorable for
frontman Bobby "Blitz"
Ellsworth's drooling all over himself during songs. Then Slayer comes on (to Hell Awaits?),
and is absolutely crushing. Early in the set
the band is kicking 7 kinds of ass, but I am finding it difficult to
focus as this punker kid keeps jumping up and hitting me in the back of
the head.
I sit there and take it for several songs, until enough is finally
enough. I turn around and push the guy back, yelling “Knock it off!”
for emphasis.
I return to the metal, and a few seconds later, I feel a hand grab my
shoulder. I pull away, annoyed and the next thing I know, I am spun
around and
get punched square in the head by a skinhead built like a dumpster.
Somehow, I get knocked back through the crowd and over the Merch table,
"The Dumpster’s" fists in hot pursuit. The merch
guys tell the skinhead to bugger off, (Thank You!)
and I spend the rest of the show bleeding and
watching Slayer from the
relative safety of the bar. Bart missed
the whole thing. Incidently, I ran into "The Dumpster" again afterwards on the
street, who imparted, along with the lump on
my head that would take several years to go away, the following sage
advice: “Next time don’t act
like an asshole”. Words to live by.
Iron
Maiden
Portland Memorial Coliseum
Portland OR
Wed 2/11/87
Maiden on the Somewhere In Time Tour. Great show. They played Rime and Powerslave, Awesome stage show. But they could,
and would,
do better.
Fishbone
Pine St Theatre
Portland OR
1987
Don’t remember the date
of this one, but man, was it electric! ‘Bone frontman
Angelo damn near took a roadies head off flinging a trombone off
stage after a solo, simply insane. The rant during "Lying Ass Bitch"
alone was worth the price of admission.
I’ve never really been a
fan of either, but when in Eugene… An hour long meal break between
bands sucked hard. Blacked
out at one point due
to an excess of alcohol, heat, and hippyness. “Touch of Grey”
was cool though. And I still made it to
work on time, crushing a full graveyard shift.
Aerosmith w/ Dokken
Portland Memorial Coliseum
Portland OR
Thu 1/21/88
Show was fun, but not
particularly memorable. Aerosmith's "Dude Look's Like A Lady", "Dream
On', and "Toys in the Attic" were the highlights.
Iron
Maiden
Cal Expo Amphitheater
Sacramento CA
Mon 6/6/88
One of the finest
concerts I have ever attended. In the height of my teen Iron Maiden worship, I traveled five
hours by bus to Sacramento to see
the band on their Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour with my friend Bill, who had
scored both tickets & backstage passes for the occasion. Maiden
was in tremendous form that evening, and would proceed to play for
almost 3 hours in a torrential downpour. I still remember singer Bruce
Dickinson
screaming “As long as you will stay here and listen, we will keep
playing!” as the opening riff to The Trooper rang out over an insane
crowd. Simply
awesome. In the afterglow, my hero worship was tarnished not in
the least by the fact that upon meeting the band that had towered over
my world
for so long, I discovered that they were about the same size as my
little sister.
The Untouchables
w/ The Skeletones, No Doubt and The Donkey Show
John Anson Ford Theater Hollywood CA
Sat 4/1/89
Truly a fantastic Ska Show, in an incredible outdoor theater. Donkey Show and a pre-preposterous
fame No Doubt were solid, but
simply couldn’t
measure up to fellow openers The Skeletones, who have
never been as good on CD as they were that night. The UT’s were at the
absolute height
of their powers, running through amazing versions of "I Spy (For the
FBI)", "I’m Not Your Stepping Stone", "City Gent", and "Wild Child",
keeping
the crowd on their feet throughout. A brilliant
way to close out the decade.
To Be Continued...