Breaking the Rules

So, this isn't a ticket stub but this show was free and stubless and I've carried around this little handbill since 1994 (it has tape, holes from pushpins and that gummy stuff you used to put your posters up in college on it, so it's been well displayed) and I even made the trek to Hayward to get the box it was in out of storage so I could scan it.

This show was FREE!!! Can you believe it? Look at that lineup and it cost us nothing.  We just showed up to this weird parking garage in the middle of Pontiac and got to see all these bands. Awesome.

This show is somewhat pivotal in my concert going life as it was the first of, what would turn out to be,  many times seeing both the Afghan Whigs and Superchunk and it was pretty amazing.

I think that Superchunk's set got cut short because some other band was late and they were being kind letting them use some of their time, which totally bummed me out. I know that this happened at the Phoenix Plaza Amphitheater so I'm pretty sure it was this show.

I can actually remember seeing the Afghan Whigs.  I was kind of near the back. It was dark and I had gotten separated from my friends, but it didn't matter. I remember the feeling I had hearing them play all of those songs that I had heard so many times on my stereo, in my car, in my friend's cars. My brother and I both think that Marcy Mays sang "My Curse" with them, which is logical because Scrawl played that day, but the internet is trying to tell me that she only did it once in Reading. Maybe Reading was the only time it was recorded. In my mind, it totally happened. Anyone want to back me up?

To all my friends present, past and beyond

Despite the fact that if I had to think of a Pennywise song that's been stuck in my head most it would be Bro Hymn, when scanning this stub I could not get the beginning of Searching out of my head. "Inside my mind is a clock tick-tocking time. not gonna stop until my last day's done. wanna try me well come get some"

This ticket stub is well worn, which is a sign that a good time was had or, at the very least, it was hot enough for me to sweat a whole bunch (just wait until we get to Lollapalooza 1994)

Pennywise is one of those bands that I still enjoy listening to from time to time even now. I don't remember much about this show but I feel like this was the show that I actually sat upstairs, which I rarely did at St. Andrew's, because my back hurt and my friend Kelly gave me a muscle relaxer or something like that and I was slightly too incapacitated to do a lot of running around in the crowd. I could be wrong that it was this Pennywise show but I don't know who I would ask to confirm it so we'll just go with that story. 

Forgotten

I forgot all about this one...

If I close my eyes I can almost feel being here, but I really don't remember. I suppose I'm just pasting memories from all of the shows I've seen at Pine Knob and creating a memory. I saw Soundgarden at Lollapalooza recently in Chicago so I'm probably just taking those sound memories and pairing them with my Pine Knob images.

I was in the pavilion for this one, not even that far back. I mean, z isn't too bad. I don't remember being in the pavilion for very many shows there. 

Kinda I Want To

If you were to live inside my 16 year old brain this day it would probably sound something like this "oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. the day is finally here. I can't believe that tonight I get to see Trent...finally. What will he play? What will I wear? Can we get close to the stage? How will we get everyone from the balcony to the main floor? Oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. I get to see TTTRRREEEENNNNTTT RRRREEEZZZZNNNOOORR!!!!!"

At this time in my life there were very few bands, people, things that I liked more than I liked Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. I had cut out pictures of Trent Reznor from magazines all over my room, NIN was written on all of my notebooks, my NIN cassettes hardly ever left the tape deck. I loved him so much and my friends were no different. We were, however, only able to procure one main floor ticket (how I ended up with the stub is beyond me because I'm pretty sure I had a balcony ticket). Once we were in we found someone who was willing to give us their main floor stub and snuck four or five people in. Two would go in one side of the asiles, one person would come out with both ticket stubs on the same side then bring someone else in with them on the other side of aisles then repeat. It took us a while to get people in and not look too suspicious but we did it.

Marilyn Manson opened and my friend Adam (aka boy I was completely in love with) and I really liked them. When Adam bought the cd the next week the guy at the record store told him that no one was ever going to like Marilyn Manson, that they were too weird. They were definitely weird but we didn't mind (and apparently neither did a whole lot of other people, at least eventually). The show...man. I remember being completely in awe the whole time. Screaming the lyrics. Trying to get as close as possible (not close enough).

Two of the four people who I remember going to the show with are no longer alive. I think of them both whenever I hear Nine Inch Nails (which is somewhat often). 

Toasters

If I think really hard I can almost remember this show...almost. I really did like ska. 

There's no way my brother went to this with me and I wasn't driving quite yet so anyone could have been my show partner. 

I've got nothing

We can blame the fact that I moved from Chicago to San Francisco a few days ago for my lack of knowledge about this show and amount of time it took for me to post this stub.

These days Urge Overkill makes me think of my friend Angie.  I don't even remember liking back then but the show only cost $11 so maybe I just went because my friends were going. Who knows. 

And then I met my best friend

This show holds special significance to me because it marks the anniversary of meeting the girl who would become like a sister to me for (probably) the rest of my life.

Possum Dixon opened this show and I got in trouble with my friends for singing along with Watch That Girl Destroy Me in front of our friend Karl, whom we knew from hanging out at Denny's, because his girlfriend had just broken up with him. 

This show was in Flint and a few carloads of people made the drive to see it. My friends and I had a special place in our hearts for the Dead Milkmen so it was worth the drive. My friend Dan went with a girl named Meaghan to the show and we hit it off really well. 17 years later we're like family. For that fact alone, this show is one of my all-time favorites. 

I'm getting bored again

This time no large man pulled me out of the pit. I probably got the crap beaten out of me.

Bring on the horns

The brass kind, not the metal kind. 

What 15 year old liked the Mighty Mighty Bosstones just as much as she liked Skinny Puppy? This one, of course.  I feel like Mustard Plug opened, which is probably untrue. 

There was a (band) and the name of the (band) escapes me. When I can't remember it irritates me....

Seriously. How many years until I remember more stuff from these stubs?

mulligan

Since I only got to see a couple of songs the first time I got a do-over, a year and a half later....

This time, however, I knew more of the songs and appreciated it a lot more. The State Theatre is a way better place to hear and see a show than Pine Knob (not saying Pine Knob was the worst but the lawn is very far from the artist). 

pass the salt pour it in my wounds

Oh man, I wish I could go back and relive this show and remember every single detail. What an excellent band...

This was my very first time going to St. Andrew's Hall, aka my favorite place to see shows for many many years. I can't think of a better band to be my first and I remember absolutely nothing from this show. It's amazing. Nothing. I cannot say enough good things about Quicksand. To this day I still love them and wish they had stuck around longer than they did, and yet all details from this show are missing. If anyone can fill me in please do. I hate my brain sometimes.  If I hadn't just shipped all of my belongings to California I would dig out old journals and see what I had to say. 

Is There Something I Should Know?

January 4, 1994 is a little more than four months before I got my drivers license therefore I still depended on other people to drive me everywhere. My friend's parents had to drive my friends and I to this show. 

This was my first time at the Palace and the first time I went to a concert without my older brother. My friends Noreen, Kelly, Susan and I were driven by someone's parents (neither myself of Noreen can remember) and picked up by Kelly's dad. James was the opener and from what I can remember they were pretty good. This was after Laid came out and everyone was in love with the title track.  I probably know way more of their catalogue now than I did then (no probably about it).

We were only able to see two or three Duran Duran songs before it was time for Kelly's dad to get us. I, personally, was terrified of Kelly's dad and would never even think about making him wait so we only sorta saw Duran Duran. Looking back I think this was one of the only times I sat in floor seats at the Palace. Too bad we didn't get to see the whole show. 

My defenses say I didn't want it anyway

This show was a point of contention between the males and the females of our friend group. The women seemed to enjoy it, the men seemed to be less impressed.

I loved the Violent Femmes at this point in my life. I mean, I still like them now but then it was a whole different level. My BBS handle was Violent Femme. My white cassette tape was basically worn out. I love love loved them so when the opportunity to see them AND visit Michael at college arose I was super excited. MSU Auditorium isn't the most intimate of venues to say the least. I don't remember having seats but the ticket seems to tell me otherwise.

My brother and I got into a giant argument about the quality of the performance. I probably didn't know what I was talking about, he was most likely right and they put on a crap show, but in my mind it was the Violent Femmes and therefore it was great. This was the first of many occasions where we argued about a band's performance. I've since learned that it is possible to agree to disagree but at 15 there was no convincing me that this show didn't rule. 

Something in the Way

Who knew that this would be the last/only time I'd see this band.

This might be the only time I saw anything at the State Fair Coliseum. I remember it being enormous and completely packed. I watched the show from the seats because the main floor was so insane. It's definitely one of those show where I wished I remembered more. In my mind I can see them playing, hear how loud it was and how less than spectacular the sound was, but I don't know if I'm actually remembering any of this stuff or just filling in holes.

The Meat Puppets and the Boredoms opened. I remember being completely intrigued by the Boredoms. 

Nirvana's set was short. Kurt Cobain was pissed that someone from the crowd threw a shoe on stage. I suppose it's reasonable, do you think you'd enjoy shoes being thrown at you? 

I'm cheating

For such a new blog I'm already breaking one of my mental rules. When I started doing this, a whole two days ago, in my mind I would just use my ticket stubs and they would all be in order and all would be right in the world. I also thought about the things I would say about Lollapalooza 1993, my first Lollapalooza experience. After posting the Primus stub I realized that something was missing...that show happened after Lollapalooza. I looked in my box just now and can't find the Lollapalooza stub anywhere.

How can this be? Well, it was about 100 degrees and it rained and I wasn't wearing a shirt for most of it and it probably disintegrated sometime throughout the day. What makes thing worse is the fact that I actually remember this experience and it would pain me not to include it so I stole a scanned stub from my friend Dan. I hope he's not mad.

I find it amazing that Dan's ticket was in such good shape. I mean, did he not experience the same torture that the rest of us did which resulted in a couple friends suffering from heat stroke? Maybe Dan is immune to sweat and rain (he is not).  I also find it amazing that Lollapalooza used to cost $28.50. I sold my ticket for this year's festival, happening right now as I type, for $200 (although it is three days now and only in Chicago).

Anyway, this, as I mentioned earlier, was my first Lollapalooza experience. I was too young to go the two previous years, and even if I wasn't there were limits to Michael's generosity when it came to dragging his little sister around. My friends and I went in several car loads and I remember the traffic getting to Milan Dragway being horrible. Milan isn't really that close to anything so after driving the 45 minutes and then waiting for what seemed like forever to park our cars the anticipation was killer.

The full lineup that year (thanks to Wikipedia) was:

Main Stage: Primus, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr., Fishbone, Arrested Development, Front 242, Babes in Toyland, Rage Against the Machine

Side Stage: Tool, Sebadoh, Cell, Unrest, Mercury Rev, Mosquito, Free Kitten, Royal Trux, Tsunami, Mutabaruka, Coctails, Scrawl,Luscious Jackson, Genitorturers, Truly, Eggs, Girls Against Boys, Thurston Moore, A Lighter Shade of Brown, Glue, The Karl Hendricks Trio, Hurl, The Goats, The Runties

I was most excited to see Dinosaur Jr. and wore my (maybe Michael's, who knows) Green Mind shirt with the cow and the gorilla (it was purple) and combat boots, because they're perfect attire for 100 degree heat. There was no shade or water anywhere in sight. I mean, it's a race track. No one wants to watch cars drive under the cover of trees. We paid $7 for a gallon of water and it was the best $7 I've ever spent. They had hoses that they were letting us drink out of but the water was not really potable. We drank it anyway. It was so hot that I took my shirt off and walked around in just my bra and at 15 that seemed perfectly reasonable. 

I remember watching Primus, Fishbone, Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Tool and Dinosaur Jr (well, sorta but I'll get to that in a minute). I'm sure I saw more bands but, again, spotty memory. 

During Tool I stood in the pit, which was something I did back (but not anymore. In fact, just last night while seeing Death From Above 1979 I was on the outside edge of the pit and was distracted and annoyed by the whole thing). Anyway, back to 18 years ago, out of nowhere I felt hands on my shoulders and this large man pick me up and remove me from the pit. He said "you don't belong there" patted me on the head and then walked away. I was so dumbfounded by the whole incident that I said nothing to him, despite usually being a giant brat. 

Dinosaur Jr., who I was so very excited to see for the first time, ended up playing 2.5 songs. The day was the usual hot and muggy Michigan summer day and so there was always a chance of rain. The clouds started to roll in right before they took the stage. In my mind, just after they started playing, a part of the stage that was big and heavy was blown down by wind, landing inches from J Mascis and causing him to scoot off as fast he could, which isn't very fast, off the stage. . The internet told me, however, that a tarp was blown from the stage causing them to have to cut the set short. It also told me that J said "everybody ready for the twister?" and that they played Little Fury Thing, Freak Scene and Just Like Heaven. All I know for sure is that I was heartbroken and after that it rained super hard. 

The night ended with Primus and a bunch of mud covered, exhausted teens dragging themselves back to the Detroit suburbs, probably stopping at Farmington Denny's to annoy our waitstaff before going home. 

Too Many Puppies

Or maybe I've done too many...never mind. My memory is terrible. I remember basically nothing about this show. If anyone can fill in the blanks feel free.

I know that in those days I was never located anywhere other than the very front of the main floor whenever possible so I'm guessing I spent a lot of this show pressed against the back of some random dude who was way older and/or bigger than me or being crushed against the front rail and pitied by security.

I really liked seeing shows at the State Theatre and I find it unbelievable how cheap stuff was in the 90s. Really? $21 total to see this show? There weren't a bunch of extra and annoying fees because there was no online at the time (well, we did BBS but you couldn't do anything other than talk to your basically imaginary friends who sometimes became your real life friends) so there was no such thing as a convenience fee or delivery charge or whatever else they decide to charge you for buying stuff online today.  We always bought our tickets at the the Ticketmaster outlet in the Novi or Farmington Harmony House, even if it meant waiting out all night on the sidewalk. This wasn't one of those waiting out overnight shows (at least I don't think it was). I probably thought this show was super expensive, though, because at 15 I had no job. How did I afford to go to any of these concerts?

um, yeah....

I think we went to see this for the opener, which was the Gin Blossoms and doesn't make it any better. I believe the usual suspects of that summer went.  

I don't think I have anything else to say about this show other than oops.

Hmmmm

This is one of those stubs where I had to do a little research to see why the heck I would be seeing this band. After a little poking around on the internet I discovered that Soul Asylum and the Screaming Trees were also on this tour which makes the whole thing make a lot more sense. 

After I found out why I went to this I started to remember things. I must have been there with Michael and all the people who we hung out with that summer, Mark Geralds, Mark Samp, Darlene, Dan? I'm not sure. I can remember being on the lawn, trying to see Mark Lanegan from the walkway between the pavilion and the grass...That's about all. I bet I sat pouting on the lawn while the Spin Doctors played because the kids old enough to drive wanted to stay to see them.

Oh my stupid brain and it's giant holes where memories used to live.

Second Show

I took a little time off between the 89x show and this one. It's tough when you're stuck in the suburbs and are too young to drive.

As far as I can remember it was my brother, Dan Harris, Megan and I who went to this and the Goo Goo Dolls were the opening band.

Dan drove his van and we got to Ann Arbor really early so we went to a pizza place down the street from Hill Auditorium for some food before the show. Dave Pirner was sitting at a table across the aisle from us drinking heavily. Some random girl came up to him and asked if he was the singer of Soul Asylum and he said no then laughed as she sulked away. The whole time they played I kept thinking about how wasted he was at dinner.

On the way home we hit a patch of ice or something that caused us to slide off the freeway onramp, run over a couple of small trees and become completely stuck. Megan and I were in the backseat and both landed on the floor.  These were the days before cell phones so we had to rely on random drivers to get us help. I wonder if one of us went with someone to a pay phone because I'm not sure how we were able to call anyone. We were stuck there for quite some time before a tow truck was able to get us back on the road. I think my brother lied and said it was his car so we could use my parent's AAA card. 

In the beginning...

I started seeing bands play live in 1992 when I was 14 years old. I was lucky enough to have an older brother who introduced me to countless bands, was kind enough to take his younger sister with him to see those bands and was awesome enough to encourage my love of music. I'm sure Michael sometimes wished that I would not go with him or disappear but I looked up to him and he was stuck with me.

Throughout the years I've saved most of my ticket stubs in a box in chronological order with no purpose other than to remind me of bands I've seen and to allow me to be the nostalgic person that I tend to be.  But now, thanks to the magical internet, I can put them out there for strangers to look at and judge my musical taste. Some of it isn't pretty and some of it is pretty rad. I'm going to try to remember who I went to shows with and any sort of connected story but my memory is occasionally foggy.

So, whomever might actually visit this page, this is the beginning.

My very first concert:

$8.90 to see a bunch of bands play!?!?!  This was the 89x's summer festival, I guess called xxxing out the summer if you read the stub. 89x was Windsor's alternative rock station (when that actually meant something) that we were able to listen to in the metro Detroit area.  My older brother, Michael, and I had purchased tickets in advance and traded Trompe Le Monde by the Pixies on cassette to a girl in the parking lot to get a third for my friend Megan.

The bands on the bill, as far as I can remember, were Goober and the Peas, Too Much Joy, Material Issue and Concrete Blonde. Being 14 years old I had to be home at some sort of reasonable hour so we couldn't stay for all of Concrete Blonde. I do remember being really excited to see Material Issue and really bummed that we couldn't see all of Concrete Blonde. In my mind there was some sort of crazy fire pit dance session after we left. This is probably far from the truth, or not.