Can't let go

You remember your first concert?
I do for sure...Robert Plant at Reunion Arena.


I've never been particularly fond of the former Led Zeppelin lead, but there was something electric about the show. Aside from being the first I smelled weed (I still can't believe it was that easy to just smoke pot in public like half the crowd was doing), I remember thinking "I want to see more....I can't get enough".

That's when it all started, I couldn't stop. A day after my fourteenth birthday I chose my poison. That first live show brought to me a world that I had only seen on limited television coverage. As a youngster I really couldn't see many live shows - no driver's license, fairly strict catholic parents, and age restrictions all kept me caged. I was a fairly sheltered child, overly protected by very well meaning parents. But I reminisced about that show for the next two years...until IT happened.

Q102 Welcomes An Evening With
THE CURE!



A few of us barely sixteen year olds went to this show. This was the big one. The Cure was a band I had listened to for a few years at the time, and this tour supported a double album that was filled with all sorts of ear candy. There I was in Reunion once again only this time the stars were aligned for me. Good friends, great band, about to get my driver's license...lights go black...a big pair of lips appeared on the screen in front of the stage...inaudible over the screaming groups of goth posers searching for acceptance...then the screen drops and there they are! The bass opening of "The Kiss" building anticipation to the wailing guitars...
I hoped the show would never end and we weren't even eight bars in to the first song.

Not long after that incredible night, I was dealt a hand that would change my life forever. Less than seven months after The Cure, my mother would be taken from me.
She had been diagnosed with cancer that summer of '87, my life was in a tailspin. Everything took a backseat after that. Back at public schools and in and out of summer school because of a messed up head...live shows were not even on the scope.
It wasn't until almost two years later that I was able to re-capture that fire. By some grace of a higher power I was able to graduate high school on time. A radio station (KEGL) was giving away tickets to a show in the parking lot of our high school. That's right they were giving them away by the hundreds 'cause no one was buying them. That show - Tears for Fears at the Starplex (for the record I still call it that).



The show was great...say what you want...they were great live. This was the therapy I needed to break out. From that point forward I was going to shows every chance I got, only I had sought something more meaningful. Sort of a starving artist hunger in a performer. I wanted to see those bands that had to lug around their own equipment...equipment that broke down...and they had to make due with whatever was available.
I was also searching for something far different in sound - in comes the industrial revolution. A lot of the industrial music of today has been weakened by advanced technology that bands like NIN, Front 242, FLA, and Skinny Puppy pioneered.

Over the years I started meeting the artists (I've been very fortunate in whom I've met early in their careers)...I was extremely surprised at how accepting most of the artists were of my annoying questions. I remember asking Moby (who was possibly one of the nicest guys I had ever talked to) "Why did you choose the DX-7?". I'm such a dork.

Now, I love looking back on all of my old ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, pictures, and autographs.



Music is what I needed throughout my life for the good and bad times alike.
Oddly enough back in '90 was when I met my wife, when I was going to shows at least twice a week. The very reason we even met was because of The Cure. Now, almost half a lifetime later I'm much healthier in life.

Today, there are a few things I refuse to let go of......my mother, my music, my wife.
I guess you could say the stars are back in alignment.