i bought my first pc & got on-line justin
time to learn of the September '93 Moody appearance at the Gorge.
i had never heard of George, Washington, before. it sounded like some kind of joke. i posted a "ticket wanted" on Prodigy, and poured over the road map. it appeared to be a long drive, and i would be alone.
one reply i got was from a scalper, whose outrageous price i declined. the other was from Cisley Spielman, a Prodigy sib, who turned me on to their Moody Haven. shortly thereafter a date was announced for the L.B. Day Amphitheatre in Salem, my home town! i couldn't believe it.
i was first in line at the local Ticket Master outlet when those tickets went on sale. i recruited my mother and niece to go with me. it would be Tova's first live rock 'n roll concert: she was 14. hard to believe now Tova's a freshman at University of Oregon, and still a fan of classic rock!
confronted with the "no cameras" business at the gate, i obligingly took mine back to the car before we went in. we were third row on the aisle in front of John, and i was blown away!
however, an increasingly obnoxious drunk fell on top of me several times as the show proceeded. she was young, skinny, beautiful; but i saw the despising glance Justin threw at her! he was tired. 6th night in a row on stage. our local press panned his band. by time it was to leave for our cars this individual had lost her purse and was prostrate on the cement (where was her champion? giving her the back of his head).
true confessions: i didn't even know most of the core-7 at that time. vinyl copies of EGBDF and OTTOAD were filed in boxes somewhere. i had been so consumed by Octave in the early '80's... (a girl friend had given me LDV for my (n0) birthday) ... from that i assumed Patrick Moraz was still the Moodies keyboardist. ;(
my clearest memory of that concert will always be that when all three Singers stepped up to the mic on "The Actor", i thought i would swoon. my niece got a bigger kick out of me than out of the show, i think. ;)
one other point to mention was that limos carrying the band exited through L.B. Day Amphitheatre's main gates simultaneously as the audience! you can be sure that didn't happen the following year.
i couldn't believe how many people had smuggled in cameras. i took an ad in the local paper afterwards, asking for copies if anybody had them, but heard nada. on the way back to our car Tova ran into a gentleman ditching the last of his stock of handmade tie-dyed commemorative t-shirts. he gave one to her and a second for me, FREE. that shirt is *my* first and most prized Moody possession. :)
right after that i received my membership back from Ivy. it surprised me that the address printed on back cover of OCTAVE was still good! later that year i lost ability to pay for Prodigy, and signed on to Lost Chords.
by fall of '94 i thought i KNEW the score. there was a body search
at the gate, and i won't tell you how i smuggled in my little
point-and-shoot. :0
this time only my 65 yr old mom was with me. an aisle splits two sections right in front of Justin. we'd managed to snag row 1 seat 1,2 (right of center), that's where we were.
damn that John Lodge! mom took a notion to rush the stage! yikes!! security were all over us!
i will tell you (gulp), rank newbie that i was: i shot off a flash in Justin's face. :( the foul look he gave had made me crying for weeks.