March 1982, Lee Civic Centre, Fort Myers, Fla.
There’s a thought that the first concert you go to says something about who you are, and I understand that to a point. The way you’re raised helps determine how your musical tastes develop as you approach your teens, and depending on the family, those musical choices could lead you to something grand (The Clash) or something terrible (Air Supply). My first show had me somewhere in the middle.
I didn’t grow up with too much music in the house — my few musical memories come from long summer road trips where we heard Jerry Vale and John Denver on the 8-track (let me be clear, I HATE these two artists). Disco was popular when I was 9 and 10 — the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was all the rage in fourth-grade circles — and to this day I love the voice of Donna Summer and the beat of “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps. But even as 10-year-old I learned that disco was uncool and went searching for a sound which demanded my attention.
Through a friend I found it in AC/DC.
I think, as a rule, every middle-school boy loves AC/DC. I heard “Highway to Hell” — with its churning guitar and snarling lyrics — and just loved it. Finding AC/DC opened up the world to what is known as classic rock, and so began my discovery of Queen, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and yes, Foreigner.
Before Mick Jones ruined Foreigner with “I Want to Know What Love Is,” its most popular song which reached No. 1 in 10 countries, the band had a rock edge and curious album covers. Have you ever looked at the cover of Head Games? A young woman is cowering in a dirty men’s bathroom — what the hell is that about? It was grimy, a little dangerous, possibly criminal. The same could be said about most 13-year-old boys.
The band’s fourth album, with the unusual name of 4, came out in 1981, and I was quite taken with it. I got the album on vinyl and listened to it constantly — gravitating toward “Urgent” and of course “Juke Box Hero”. I heard they were on tour, I wanted to go.
And here’s where it gets weird. I was living with my father in Miami, he was recently divorced and at an age — 43 — where he was still looking to date. I remember thinking my father as always so grown up, but when I turned 43 I didn’t feel like I was a grown up at all. Maybe that’s the way everyone feels, grown-ups are what teenagers see and grown-ups just see themselves as teenagers.
So my father had an idea. Foreigner was playing in Fort Myers, a town we used to live in, and he would take me to the concert if he could bring a date. My father never acknowledged music, and I can’t say if I ever knew him to go to a concert. He listened to talk radio and while he had some records (Herb Alpert), he never played them. I don’t think he knew who Foreigner was, but I think his date of his did.
I want to say she was a former secretary of his when he worked in Fort Myers, and she was younger than he was. We went for a nice dinner and then headed off to the Lee Civic Centre for my first rock show. So if you’re keeping score, my first concert involved me as the third-wheel on a date my divorced dad was having with a former secretary to see a band with an album cover showing a young woman about to be attacked in a dirty men’s bathroom. It was also the first time I smelled the scent of what I later learned was “marijuana,” though now I much prefer the term “ganja.”
Yep, my first concert was with my dad.
I found a setlist to fill in some of my memories, because I was mostly just watching, taking in everything around me. I was one of the younger people there — I was 13 at the time — Foreigner seemed like a band more for 20-somethings than teens (I think Supertramp was like this). The venue was relatively new then and held about 7,500 people. We were sitting up a bit, but were directly facing the stage, and I remember how loud everything was. The din of the crowd was fluid, and when the band started up, the wave of the crowd noise mixed with music from the speakers felt like home. It was exciting.
At this point I knew the band’s popular songs — “Dirty White Boy,” “Cold As Ice,” “Double Vision,” “Head Games” — and laughed every time the band played a song I knew. Our seats, nestled a little higher up from the floor, was heavy with the pungency of smoke, if you know what I mean, so that may have contributed to my laughing.
It took me a few songs, but by mid-show I was singing along at the top of my lungs. “Urgent” had me at full throttle, and when the bass kicked in at the start of “Juke Box Hero,” I was a smiling idiot. A blown-up plastic juke box was brought on stage, which by song’s end was then blown apart. I didn’t think you could blow something up inside — this was a whole new world for me.
They left after “Juke Box Hero,” and I thought show was over. Nope, encore. The opening song? “Feels Like the First Time”. After “Hot Blooded” and “Headknocker,” the show was over.
I left the show in a daze, I was talking non-stop about it, though I think my father was just happy it was all over. We were staying the night in Fort Myers — it was a good three hours from Miami — and the next stop was the hotel.
If you must know, I had my own room, while my father had, ummm, one for himself. It was the first time I was in a hotel room by myself, I flipped on the TV, which had cable. It was closing in on midnight and there wasn’t much on, except for this one station showing sports coverage. An all-sports channel, who ever heard of such a thing?
It was ESPN.
So I leave this musical writing experiment with what was a night of firsts. I’m not sure what my first concert says about me, but 35 years later going to concerts remains one of my favorite things.
