The Concerts: 1993

When I reflect on 1993, the following things pop to mind:

*my first semester of grad classes in the winter (although the proper acceptance into grad school was yet to come)

*sweating the summer away in the Forum in MtP while I worked at MI Wherehouse Records (the first summer that I didn't work at Evergreen Park Grocery since '85)

*going to one meeting of my I/O Psych fall class and dropping it 'cause my heart wasn't in it (the only grad class I ever dropped)

*the beginning of my Comedy Night MC career at Boomer's in MtP

*these concerts:

Daniel Ash [St. Andrew's Hall 3.19]
Prince & The New Power Generation [Fox Theatre Detroit 4.2]
Duran Duran / Terence Trent D'Arby [Pine Knob 8.4]
Steely Dan [The Palace of Auburn Hills 8.13]
Neil Young / Soundgarden [Pine Knob 8.16]
Depeche Mode / The The [The Palace of Auburn Hills 10.22]
Curve [St. Andrew's Hall 12.7]

I hadn't really opened up the concert floodgates (that would be in '94), but it's a few tentative steps in that direction. Without question, the Neil Young & Soundgarden show was one of the loudest fucking shows I've ever been to in my life; Neil was backed by the surviving members of Booker T. & The MG's, but all nuance was blasted into oblivion by the towering stacks of Marshall amps. So, so loud, even with earplugs.

The Dan was The Dan, and Curve was still narcotic and dark. Prince (just a year or so away from changing his name to "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince") was stunning in his virtuosity, from piano to guitar to singing to dancing to wry looks. Depeche Mode openers The The were touring on their album Dusk, featuring Johnny Marr from The Smiths (who didn't tour with them, as I recollect); not only was Dusk a great The The record, but a song or two sounded as close to The Smiths as anything I've ever heard. [Try the song "Slow Emotion Replay" if you don't believe me.] Again, I might have missed some, but that list is pretty close.

And then came 1994, or "the year that concerts broke." Oh boy.

Comments

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