This is pretty long. But that's how the story is. I have a problem with brevity. Anyway I wrote it down a long time ago to give to my children someday but it's looking like I'm not going to have any to leave it to, so here it is for you instead.
I was invited to a concert. The guy who asked me knew I very much liked The Clash and Irish music, and he said, "Let's go see this band The Pogues, they're kind of a mixed-up version of that. They're playing up in Boston. Joe Strummer's going to be there too. We'll make a night of it." I had not heard of The Pogues at that time. I grew up in a middle-class suburb of Connecticut and the local radio stations usually didn't even play The Clash except for Rock the Casbah and maybe London Calling, late at night when the advertisers wouldn't care. So I thought sure, let's go, and I kinda liked this guy although I had only just met him and thought this would be a good time to ramp it up.
So we drove up to Massachusetts. We hit some pub before the show because he said that it was "required" that one have a drink or two before seeing Shane. I didn't know who Shane was but my guy said he was the singer. Well okay let's have a few drinks. I did not like beer at the time but was told I'd have to have at least a half of stout in honor of the band and of Ireland. That was the first time I had ever tasted it. Bitter and chocolatey. I inhaled some of the foam and the bubbles in my nose made me laugh. The first time this man kissed me was after reaching over playfully to lick off a bit of foam from my lips.
By the time we left the pub I was fairly tipsy. I didn't care; I wasn't driving (although at that time that didn't stop me or most anyone) and I was with this man who I liked and we were going to see a band that he liked. I actually didn't care much about the seeing-the-band part. I just didn't like live music too much at the time. Too noisy, too messy, people shoving me around, stale beer flying through the air and landing on me, the smell of cigarettes, back when you could smoke anywhere, that would stay stuck in my hair for days. And sometimes too little talent to have wasted my time. This band, The Pogues, was just a means to an end for me at the moment. A way to get this guy to like me more. It's not that I didn't want to see the band at all but if we had gone to dinner only that would have been fine too. I thought maybe we'd be able to talk a bit during the show, with the music playing behind us.
We arrived. From being tipsy I was especially charming, at least that's how it seemed at the time, and I somehow managed to get us right up at the front. I don't know how the tickets were set up but because I was very beautiful all those years ago I was able to sweet-talk some ticket person. He was a young guy, French or Moroccan maybe, and when I heard his accent I spoke to him in that language and I guess that did it. He put us up at the front, even though I was clearly with someone already and he wasn't going to get anything from me. So we were standing there, me and this man, his arm around me, waiting for this band whose name I didn't understand to come out.
And then this large (to me) group walked out and the show started. And it was like a shot to the heart. "Sweet Jesus, what the fuck is that???" I blurted out. I felt my stomach drop when the band started playing and then again when Shane started singing. "That's Shane MacGowan, the singer I told you about," the man shouted to me over the deafening music. I was completely and utterly transfixed. Couldn't take my eyes off him. My ears were trying to understand the words, any words. I think I stood there slack-jawed, stunned. I was an atheist by then but I suddenly knew how religious people felt when they thought they had just witnessed a miracle, something they'd never seen before and maybe never would again. Watching him up there gripping the mic, sometimes screaming into it, I could feel the blood rushing through my heart. I barely noticed when Joe Strummer sang because I wanted that other guy back. Sorry Joe.
This man I was with must have thought it was time to start making the moves--maybe he thought my immobility meant I was completely snockered and so it would be easy--and after a minute of trying to squirm away politely--I did not stand up for myself so much in those days--I grabbed him and flung him off and said, "Will you get yer bloody hands off me, I'm trying to listen!!!" He must have seen something in me that he didn't expect, because his eyes widened and he stepped back and didn't try again all night. Part of the time I just stared at the musicians and the other part I closed my eyes and let the sound fill me.
After the concert was over, he wanted to go back to the place we were crashing at and I said, "Are ya crazy? I'm going to find a record store." (Clearly I was the crazy one, with that idea. I guess I must have been drunk to think of such a thing.) Of course there were none open at that hour, or maybe there were somewhere but I didn't know Boston all that well at the time. I said, "Are you coming with me or not?" He told me I couldn't go wandering around all alone like that and trailed after me but after an hour of looking, of floating through the streets with my face turned up to the sky, he said he was cold and wanted to go home and I told him I wasn't ready yet, he could do what he wanted, but I was going to find someone, anyone, with that music. He looked at me like I was insane, scrunched his face up into this peculiar expression of incomprehension, and then he flipped me the bird and said "to hell with you then" and took off. I never did find a record store but I ended up in some Irish dive with a hundred people singing Pogues songs a cappella at the top of their lungs. After the bar closed some of us went outside and stood in the street and kept singing. I didn't know any of the words but I did not want to leave.
What the name of my date was, that guy who introduced me to The Pogues, I no longer know or care. I never saw him again. I found a bus back to Connecticut at five in the morning. I think that was among the happiest nights of my life.
# # #
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:50 pm