Freckles and Tea
In the waning days of the summer of 1983 I attended my first concert ever, and it was a doozy. There were many tours that summer -- Talking Heads, Tom Petty, Tears for Fears, Steve Miller -- but the biggest by far was the Police’s Synchronicity Tour. Sting, Stewart Copeland, and Andy Summers were on top of the world, and they headed into the Hollywood Park racetrack with three opening acts: Berlin, the Fixx, and the Thompson Twins. (Yes, this was the 80s...) What makes this story interesting, though, is that since I was only thirteen and my step-brother Peter only twelve, we would not be allowed to go alone. My mother took us.
In case you’re only thirteen years old and you’re thinking about asking your mom to take you to a concert, you can use this story as a case study of what not to do. Here’s how it went...
The first thing you need to know is that September is probably the hottest month in Southern California, and this was a typical September day. The Thompson Twins were scheduled to start things off in the early afternoon, so we arrived for the general admission show at about noon, which gave us plenty of time to bake in the sun.
Coincidentally, there was a group of teenage girls sitting directly in front of us who were getting baked while baking in the sun. (Their mothers were not in attendance.) There was one particular girl, probably about fifteen or so, who spent an awful lot of time with the pipe in her mouth. Her brown hair was cut daringly short, just like all the cool kids of the day, and freckles danced across the bridge of her nose, souvenirs, no doubt, of countless summer days spent lounging on the beach.
If ever there was a teachable moment, this was it, and my mom took full advantage. As Freckles drifted further and further into her purple haze, my mom became more and more disgusted. "Just look at her," she said. "She's here with her friends at this big concert, and she's not going to remember any of it!" For years it was the image of Freckles trying to keep her eyelids open that served as my own personal anti-drug campaign.
But there were other interesting aspects of the day, like when Pete and I went to buy some soda and missed the Thompson Twins' entire set. Or when I had the pleasure of sitting next to my mother while Terri Nunn writhed around on the stage screaming "I'm a slut!" Or when alcohol mixed with pounding sun and boredom between sets to produce the biggest melee I've ever seen. (It was at about this time, I would later learn, that a young Gwen Stefani had the pleasure of shaking Sting's hand, a meeting which -- no doubt -- propelled her to a career in music.)
When the Police finally took the stage the sun had finally retreated behind the grandstand and given way to a much cooler evening, but the damage could be seen everywhere. Shirtless men showed off bright red backs, and Freckles and her friends looked like they were waiting to be tucked in.
Sadly, the music itself doesn't hold as strong a place in my memory as all the rest of it. In fact, there are only two things that I remember for certain about the performance. First, when they played "King of Pain," I remember wondering why the crowd insisted on singing "it's the same old SHIT as yesterday," when the lyric was clearly supposed to be "same old thing." Second, instead of taking an intermission, Sting imposed his British will and the band retreated to their dressing room for a tea break which was broadcast on jumbo screens for all to see. It was all quite civilized until Sting and Stewart staged a fight and flipped over the tea table. Definitely, an omen of things to come...
As soon as the show was over, my mom gathered us up and headed to the parking lot, oblivious to our assurances that there would be an encore. The day had already been much more than she had bargained for. As we were searching in the dark for the family car, we heard the crowd roar in the distance, and then the music started again. We had been right about the encore, but it hardly mattered.
On that night the Police became my favorite band. I wore the tour t-shirt proudly on the first day of school later that week, and almost every Friday for the rest of that year. The following year I would find myself in a new school far from my old friends, but it was the Police who came to my rescue. I fell in with a group of tenth graders who spent much of July and August -- and by that I mean every single day -- swimming in my backyard pool. The soundtrack of that summer was Outlandos D'Amour. We listened to it hundreds of times until we owned each of Steward Copeland's drum riffs, anticipated every lilt of Sting's voice, and memorized every aspect of Andy Summers's guitar solos. I cannot listen to any of those songs without feeling the sting of chlorine in my eyes.
Eventually I would have all of their albums and follow Sting deep into his solo career, but there was always a regret. If I had seen that concert after becoming a fan, how much better would it have been?
Thankfully, I'll finally be able to get an answer this summer. In celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of "Roxanne," the boys have mended the fences well enough to plan what should be the biggest tour of the summer.
They'll be playing Dodger Stadium in June, and I'll be there. Tickets went on sale on Monday morning at 10:00 AM, and even though I was teaching class at the time, I was still able to sneak onto my computer long enough to buy two tickets before they sold out at 10:30. The price really didn't matter, because there was no price I wouldn't have paid. I'll finally get to see the encore I've been waiting twenty-four years to hear. And who knows -- maybe I'll even see Freckles again.
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