The Concerts Of My Misspent Youth

I'm a member of a Facebook page that is dedicated to songs, and every day we have a theme and post a song pertaining to that theme.  It's always fun when we have a theme about songs we can't stand!  Today, we posting songs from bands we have seen in concert.  It got me thinking about some concerts I attended many years ago.  My cousin took me to see an Aussie band at a North Sydney nightclub.  I won't say the name of the band, but I will say that they encapsulated to me all that was wrong about the Eighties: gelled hair, puffy shirts, crappy songs, strap-on synths.  The lead singer of this band is actually now a rather prolific figure in Oz music, and a talented man.  I just think he wasted his talents on this genre.  What I remember is my cousin bopping away and having a great time, whilst I, a lifelong devotee of glam rock and metal, stood there sipping my West Coast Cooler and thinking, WTF?  I also met an incredibly unsuitable man with whom I fell in love, and believed he loved me too.  He still loved his ex, as it turned out.  I got my heart broken.  Never mind, it freed me to meet many more unsuitabe men before I met my hubby.

It also got me thinking about going to see Hoodoo Gurus gigs.  Were the Gurus big in the States at all?  I saw them a few times in the late Eighties, at a venue called Selinas, which was a bit of a rough place across the road from a Sydney beach.  Interestingly, I understand that hotel is now more family oriented.  Anyway, my cousins and I would go to a gig, and rather than go broke at the bar would go to the bottle shop and buy a few bottles of cider, then go and sit on the beach and drink, waiting until it was time for the band to come on.  All that cider had an effect, and once we got into the auditorium, I had to go to the ladies.  So I stood there with my legs plaited in the queue, wondering why only the first and third cubicles were being used.  It turns out there was a couple having sex in the middle cubicle.  Good Lord! 

Another time when I saw these guys, my cousin (my gig-date!) and I got stuck standing in front of a bunch of complete knob-heads.  They decided to slam dance, and I nearly got knocked out of my shoes.  My cousin was feeling unwell so I took her outside, but on the way past I gave this retard a huuuge shove, as payback for the shove he had dealt me earlier.  I complained to the bouncers about them, but fuck-all happened.  Recently I read about Dave Grohl telling off somebody who was mucking up in the mosh-pit, and thought, "Good for you, Dave."

Well, that's all for now.  I guess I'm just feeling a bit whimsical about the times when I nearly got knocked from my shoes, and nearly wet my pants waiting for a couple of people to finish fornicating in the dunny.  I may incorporate this into a future novel.  It hasn't appeared in my other novels, but only because there was no suitable spot for them.

'Calumny while reading Irvine Welsh' - http://www.zeus-publications.com/calumny_while_reading_irvine_welsh...

'Abernethy' - http://www.zeus-publications.com/abernethy.htm