{"id":805,"date":"2018-01-26T19:37:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=805"},"modified":"2026-06-26T19:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:55:06","slug":"hall-oates-general-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=805","title":{"rendered":"Hall & Oates, General Public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 1985, Hollywood Sportatorium, <\/strong>Hollywood, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Concerts aren\u2019t good places to go on dates. A good show wants you to be an active participant, and for me, a concert is about my feelings and relationship toward the band. When the music is playing, I\u2019m invested about what\u2019s happening on stage and not what\u2019s going on around me, which is not a great demeanor when you\u2019re trying to woo someone. I\u2019ve been to many concerts with my wife Kristen, and we have a great time because we share that memory together \u2014 but during the show my focus is what\u2019s in front of me. It\u2019s why I never minded going to concerts alone.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t know this in high school because I was dumb (though my high school self would disagree). In the winter of 1985 there was an opportunity to take a friend (who I wanted to be more than a friend) to a show with bands we both enjoyed. It was a disastrous night, but not because of the music.<\/p>\n

Hall & Oates is a great band; this is not for debate. Yes, they made stupid videos and yes some of their song arrangements can be cheesy at times, but if you strip down their songs to the basic elements, you find pop pieces of perfection. It\u2019s no wonder rap groups love Hall & Oates \u2014 they know a great beat when they hear one. In 1985 there were few bands bigger than Hall & Oates, and I got two tickets and a yes to attend from my friend Sarah.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why she agreed to go to the show with me \u2014 sure we were friends but she had to know I didn\u2019t see this as a \u201cfriends going to see a show together\u201d event. Perhaps it was the lure of the opening band \u2014 General Public \u2014 or maybe because several of our friends were going as well, though we weren\u2019t all sitting together. All I know is I fancied this as a date.<\/p>\n

The show was at South Florida\u2019s Hollywood Sportatorium, an oversized airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere with one two-way road leading in and out. It made for terrible, no-good traffic jams, but at the time was one of the few mid- to large-sized arenas in the area, so it got strong acts.<\/p>\n

I took my father\u2019s Oldsmobile, a Delta 88 Royale Brougham, which was a decent car unless it got stuck in stop-and-go traffic, where it would tend to overheat. Which is what happened on this night, coming to a rattling end at a gas station 10 miles from the arena.<\/p>\n

When you get older you learn to laugh off things beyond your control, but at 16 this unsettling turn knocked me hard. We were stranded in Fort Lauderdale (remember this is before cell phones), going to miss a show we both wanted to see, and I had no idea what to do next. The date was a disaster, though I must say Sarah was pretty cool about it while it was happening.<\/p>\n

My best friend Karl was also going to the show, and among Karl\u2019s main attributes was his inability to be to anything on time. So lo and behold, who do I see coming down the road some 20 minutes later but Karl, loaded with people in his 1974 Volvo, which always sounded like it was coming apart. One of my favorite aspects about Karl is his unflappable attitude \u2014 he just grinned and Sarah and I climbed in \u2014 leaving my father\u2019s car parked in a place it shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

After another 40 minutes of traffic and uncomfortable bouts of silence, we arrived to a sold-out arena. And yes we missed General Public (OK, we heard the end of \u201cTenderness,\u201d that was about it).<\/p>\n

Sarah and I went away from the others and settled into our seats. Meanwhile my mind is racing a million ways, the weight of the night obvious on my face. What do I tell my dad about the car? Does Sarah hate me? Why did I wear this shirt?<\/p>\n

Then Hall & Oates hit the stage.<\/p>\n

I liked the band, but I\u2019ll admit to not being a huge fan of the band at the time, as ubiquitous as it was. This being February 1985, the band had two current top 10 hits from the Big Bam Boom<\/em> album, and while I didn\u2019t think I knew many of its songs, it would become clear I did. \u201cRich Girl,\u201d \u201cManeater,\u201d \u201cKiss on My List,\u201d \u201cSay it Isn\u2019t So\u201d \u2014 the setlist was relentless and allowed me to relax my high level of angst. Sarah seemed to have a good time.<\/p>\n

Did the band play \u201cSarah Smile\u201d? Nope. Probably a good thing.<\/p>\n

When the show ended, we walked over to Karl\u2019s car and waited for him to show up \u2014 I was hoping he might take me back to my dad\u2019s car, but that wasn\u2019t going to happen. We piled in the car \u2014 me in the back seat, Sarah in the front \u2014 and Karl took us all home. He even walked Sarah to her door.<\/p>\n

So no to concert dates, but from that point, yes to Hall & Oates. And years later, I\u2019m still friends with Sarah. Sometimes things have a way of working out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 1985, Hollywood Sportatorium, Hollywood, Fla. Concerts aren\u2019t good places to go on dates. A good show wants you to be an active participant, and for me, a concert is about my feelings and relationship toward the band. When the music is playing, I\u2019m invested about what\u2019s happening on stage and not what\u2019s going on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[91,90],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-general-public","tag-hall-and-oates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}