Going to Concerts

On Saturday, June 17, 1989 I saw the following bands play live in San Diego at SDSU.

• New Order
• Public Image Ltd
• The Sugarcubes
• De La Soul

In my memory this was a Lollapalooza lineup. But Lollapalooza was not until the ’90s. I bought the tickets at Tower Records. New Order (nee Joy Division) was neck and neck with Talking Heads as my Favorite Band Of All Time. It was Very Important to me to keep an ordered list of my favorite bands at the time. The lineup was part of X-Fest II. It was put on my 91X, I think the emcee was Steve West.

I remember De La Soul doing the song Potholes in My Lawn and the stage performance included women driving lawnmowers around the stage. Pretty lame. I didn’t yet have much of a sense of whimsy about music, then. De La Soul as a live act could not possible match the brilliance of the recording of 3 Feet High and Rising which I was wearing out on cassette tape.

Public Image Limited was great, and they did play Rise and Disappointed. Public Image too. I think I was disappointed they did not play Order of Death. I love a dirge.

Internet Nerds have let me down, as setlists are only available for New Order from that day. I have mostly my memory to go by.

I was solitary by nature, and I was slow to cultivate friends. I have been to a fair number of concerts alone, but I went to that show with my friend Erin, I’ve been to some great shows. A concert is a communal event. It’s more satisfying to see and listen with other people. Ideally with people you like. I mostly didn’t know people with my tastes. My friend Erin changed that. I loved arguing about music. However insufferable you may find the characters in any version of High Fidelity; that’s about how insufferable you might’ve found me. It was good I met Erin when I did at the downtown San Diego Public Library. We are friends to this day.

Music has meant so much to me. It was great when I worked for Slacker Radio. I was contributing to a service actively playing music for people. It was also a glimpse at the painful realities of the music business: licensing, publishing, intellectual property. After a rebrand, we got business cards and were encouraged to put our favorite concert onto the front of our business cards. Mine said “Morrissey, 1992.”

Favorites are tricky things. They change. I think Morrissey was my favorite because I saw it with my sister. November 20, 1992 at the Performing Arts Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. She took the train up from Roanoke to stay with me. That was when a person needed to take a bus to Clifton Forge before getting on a train to Charlottesville. She was a teenager and my parents were in a tricky part of their marriage. Music was a respite. A setlist for the show is available. Moz was electric and charismatic and that guitar sound from the Your Arsenal days was so vivid. It still ranks high. Sharing that show with her meant so much.

I’ve quoted this bit of Frank Zappa before, and I will here now, again. A kind of aphorism. Maybe a poem. I had it on a t-shirt at one time.

Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is THE BEST.