Masterpiece: Kick

[Today: Revisiting May 28, 1988 and my first concert...]

In the spring of 1988, I was an 18 year-old kid wrapping up my freshman year at the University of Oregon. As summer closed in, some high school friends and I decided to get tickets to see INXS at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. INXS was hotter than blazes at the time – their album Kick was on its way to selling 9 million copies and spinning off five Top 10 singles, while the band dominated MTV.

Back then, Portland was the BIG CITY to me, and I’d never been to a concert before, so this was a serious adventure. To properly celebrate the occasion, Bobby Evans, Dennis Quigley and I enlisted the help of one of our classmates’ older brothers. At the appointed time, Mike Simpson showed up with a bag of wine coolers and beer. We paid him $20 for his services, and as he was turning to leave, he asked “You guys need any party favors?”

So not only was this my first concert, it also turned out to be the first time I smoked the leafy green (and yes, I inhaled). Good times. I’m convinced that my feet didn’t touch the parking lot on my way into the Coliseum – I just floated from our hotel room straight over to the show, with a huge smile plastered across my face.

The hustle and bustle of concerts is old hat to me now, but back then it was like dropping in on a carnival. Steel Pulse was playing when we entered the building, and to this day they’re one of the best opening acts I’ve ever seen. They pulled this trick on stage where they danced around in a circle, slowing the music and their dancing in sync until they came to a complete, and silent, stop. To my stoned mind it was like watching reggae magic.

As luck would have it, our seats were in the last row of the upper deck, the very definition of nose-bleed. I don’t know about Bobby and Dennis, but I couldn’t have cared less – I was just happy to be in the building. It was a great show – INXS sounded fabulous and they played all the songs we wanted to hear. And because nobody in our party was arrested or killed, the evening can only be described as a massive success.

Of course, less than 10 years later, Michael Hutchence would hang himself in a hotel room in Sydney, effectively bringing INXS to an end. And in 1995 Memorial Coliseum was replaced by the Rose Garden as the home of the Portland Trailblazers. It still sits in the same spot, but it’s now a building without a purpose or a future. But in my mind’s eye, the dead rock star and the dusty building are still alive and rocking, the crowd hasn’t stopped cheering, and that dumb grin is still all over my face.

Listen: Need You Tonight

*****

Question: What was your first show?

Tags: INXS, Kick, marijuana, Memorial Coliseum, Portland OR, Steel Pulse, teenagers run amok