FIRST NIGHT

On Saturday evening, July 30, 1988, my world was forever altered.

This was the night I attended my first live rock concert. I was 15 years old and went to see Def Leppard on the summer leg of their world tour to promote their Hysteria album. I went with a bunch of my friends from high school and one of my buddies had a stepfather that owned a limousine company. The venue was two hours from home and taking the limo solved our problem of most of us being too young to drive.

The place was called Great Woods. It’s still there and seats about 20,000 with the lucky ones having seats and covering and, back then, the unlucky kids with no money sat on the lawn, which formed an upward sloping hill behind the seats and far, far from the stage. Today there are bleacher seats, but my lawn memories are much better. Someone brought binoculars so we could see the band, but upon arrival I realized that my roaring teenage hormones were going to be way too distracted to keep my eyes on the stage.

I remember handing over my ticket and walking in to a paved area with a bunch of gates, fencing, and food stands. Picture an amusement park, but with thousands of kids dressed for the mid-80’s. I ain’t talking about the temperature. Women in spandex (one all in black that had “sex” written in white letters all over), tops barely covering anything, guys in ripped jeans and no shirts at all. High heels, stockings, big hair, make up and a warm sweet smell of something in the air that was sickening but interesting at the same time. I was nervous when I saw people smoking things that looked like some kind of home-rolled cigarettes and holding the smoke in only to laugh and release it into these pungent clouds while dancing to some music that was being blared over the P.A. before the opening band (Europe…The Final Countdown) took the stage. We hadn’t even made it to our seats on the lawn and I didn’t know where to look or even if I should.

The world was brand new. If this was Rock-n-Roll, then sign me up. I promised myself that my high school rock band would practice a bit harder in order to attract girls like these Def Leppard fans. I wasn’t sure what planet this was, but if the aliens came and took me there, I would have stayed.

Oh, yes, the music. More about that in a moment but up in the far right back corner of the lawn (open seating so that’s where we wound up) there were people near us with blankets, food, alcohol and the funny cigarettes again. My friends told me that it was weed and I should just be cool and act as if I knew all of this already. The people near us kind of watched the show, but spent the majority of the evening drinking, getting high and engaging in blanket action that most definitely should not be going on in public. I acted like I was cool with that as well, even though I quickly realized that my youthful innocent view of the world was shrinking in real time. What wasn’t shrinking was my desire to be the people on stage. Def Leppard was my favorite band growing up and I especially followed the career of Rick Allen, the drummer.

Just before I was diagnosed with MD in 1985, Allen lost his left arm in a car accident near his hometown of Sheffield, England. He spent months in the hospital wondering how or if he would ever play drums again. The band was already famous, and having a drummer with one arm was going to be a problem. Or not.

Over the next two years, Allen had a special drum kit designed for him that enabled him to use his left leg to play the parts that his left arm executed before IT was executed. Funny, not funny. He used a computer (in 1986!!) to run electronic pads that made up his new drum kit. Using multiple foot pedals, he was able to trigger parts of the kit that he previously played with his arm. It’s very cool, and although the technology was primitive by today’s standards, he still employs the same basic concept today.

During Def Leppard’s set, the lead singer made a speech about Rick Allen’s accident and how he had overcome so much˙trauma to return to making music. The band had nicknamed him the Thunder God and the crowd of 20,000 (me included), went crazy when he took a drum solo.

I watched his whole solo through the binoculars. That night I knew I could play drums AND be disabled at the same time. Rick Allen did it; I could do it. The world was brand new.

I didn’t become as famous as Def Leppard, and I didn’t have thousands of ladies screaming at me while I was on stage, but then again, it’s not over yet.

Stay safe, stay awesome and stay tuned.

TWO bonus links: THIS is an amazing video about Rick and his charitable work, and for my music nerd buddies out there, HERE is the Def Leppard setlist from that fateful night of July 30, 1988.