The Concerts: 1994

I can't recall what I looked like in 1994, but I know that one of the biggest things to hit me was a car upgrade, going from a silver Geo Metro (the kind of car so small, I liked to joke, that it came with a pop-up tombstone instead of air bags in the event of an accident) to a burgundy Chevy Corsica, which I held on to until the fall of 2000. And I went to some shows as well:

Morphine [St. Andrew's Hall, Detroit 3.7]
Cocteau Twins [State Theater, Detroit 3.18]
The Brand New Heavies [Industry, Pontiac 5.13]
Elvis Costello / Crash Test Dummies [Pine Knob, Clarkston 6.6]
Tori Amos [State Theatre, Detroit 7.2]
Depeche Mode / Primal Scream [Pine Knob, Clarkston 7.4]
Lush / Weezer [St. Andrew’s Hall, Detroit 7.30]
Steely Dan [Pine Knob, Clarkston 8.27]
Nine Inch Nails / Hole [Pine Knob, Clarkston 9.2]
Tori Amos [Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor 10.15;Wharton Center, East Lansing 10.16]
The Jesus & Mary Chain / Mazzy Star [State Theatre, Detroit 11.7]
Boyz II Men / Babyface / Tevin Campbell [The Palace of Auburn Hills 12.29]

A pretty eclectic list, if I do say so myself. [Where the hell is Tevin Campbell these days, anyway?] What do I remember? I was sick as a dog for the BNH show -- which didn't start until 11:30pm -- but I told myself I wasn't going to leave until after I saw them rip it up, which they did. Hard to believe I saw Tori Amos three times that year, too. The U-M/MSU double-header was something I turned into a concert compare/contrast article for Central's newspaper CM Life, so I made the shows pay for themselves to an extent. [I also saw Pulp Fiction and Ed Wood that weekend, so it was an artistically fulfilling two days, to say the least.]

And way before "Buddy Holly" broke big, I saw Weezer open up for a second-gen shoegazer band called Lush. [I was and am a big 'n' tall Lush fan. Waaaaay more than Weezer.] Lush was promoting an album called Split, a gorgeous clockwork epic of ethereal bliss and romantic yearning that hardwired my nervous system from start to finish. And live, they brought a bit of an edge that came to the fore a few years later in their '96 quasi-Britpop album called Lovelife. [Both recommended, especially if you check your local used CD store and find 'em cheap.] Sadly, their drummer hanged himself that year, which effectively ended the band. But they'll always be a part of my summer of '94, when the night seemed endless and my future seemed limitless.

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