August 1985, Miami Marine Stadium, Virginia Key, Fla.
Being in high school during the 1980s in Miami meant there were certain things you most likely experienced: At one point you were at a party where there was lots of cocaine, you had several conversations about the TV show Miami Vice, and you went to a Jimmy Buffett concert. Now you might not like cocaine (never touched it myself), Don Johnson (but Edward James Olmos is cool) or tropical island music (it depends), but it hardly mattered.
I don’t dislike Jimmy Buffett, he is a prolific and talented songwriter with some great songs in his repertoire. “A Pirate Looks at Forty” is a classic, and I’ll admit to liking “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” more because it defines a happy time in my childhood. But some of his songs irritate the shit out of me — with “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” being the top culprits. Perhaps the over-commercialization of some of his tunes cause me to grimace, but making money is making money.
The Miami Marine Stadium was the site of speed-boat races and had fantastic views of Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami. My grandmother lived on Biscayne Bay, and on some weekends you could hear the powerboats racing from her balcony. The stadium seated 7,000, but for this show boats were allowed to gather behind the open stage — which jutted out into the water, making for an only-in Miami moment. It was just before the start of my senior year in high school and my best friend was able to secure his dad’s sailboat to go to the show. A bunch of us piled in for what was a rather wild adventure.
That year Buffett released his first greatest hits album — Songs You Know by Heart — so his music found a growing fan base in my high school, with “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” carrying particular favor among the 17-year-old set. It was an OK greatest hits album but I didn’t latch on to it like others — it made for perfectly good background music for any occasion but it didn’t have the resonance of Legend.
The show, which was later made into a video called Live by the Bay, was a crowded mess of bikinis, alcohol, heat and distraction. We brought a bunch of floats with us and like many people left the boats to try and move closer to the stage. Buffett came out to a riotous applause, playing “Son of a Son of a Sailor” and “Door Number” with Fingers Taylor, before the rest of the band started to filter out as the show progressed.
From our vantage point we couldn’t see much, but speakers pointed at the marina made it easy to hear the show. I remember during part of the show me and my friend John were trying to chat up two girls who were having troubles with their rafts. It was obvious that the people in the stands were there for the show and the people in the water were there for the fun on the water set to a beach soundtrack. At times Buffett would reference the crowd behind him — he had to, it was a rowdy gathering — and as the summer light faded he sent the crowd into a frenzy with a finishing “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Fins,” “Last Mango in Paris,” “A Pirate Looks at Forty” and of course “Margaritaville”.
We got home at some point, the show not as much of a memory as the experience of the day. I have to find that video tape and see if I’m in there somewhere, but nowadays I’d watch it with the volume on mute.
