Brewed Beverage of Choice: A Pint of Fullers ESB
You may think it difficult to beat Bruce Springsteen and U2 for most memorable concerts. You may, but you would be wrong in my book. I was still in high school for Springsteen and barely 21 for the U2 concert. It seemed like something was missing. That something emerged as a road trip to a concert at the Metro in Chicago. I had not been in Chicago a lot since 1990, but there was no passing this trip up. How in the world could I miss Radiohead?
There was one little problem with our plan as we piled into the car and headed south on I94 - none of us had tickets to a sold out show. This minor detail was not going to stop us from getting into the Metro to see one of the best live acts I would see in my lifetime. The whole ride down, my friends and I plotted our way of getting tickets and how much we were willing to pay. As a dutiful Catholic, buying tickets illegally from a scalper was one of the most “sinful” things I was going to do in my 20 some odd years of life. Well that…and getting snuck into the bar below the Metro when I was 19 with my then girlfriend.
When we got to the Metro, there was not a scalper in sight. We could not even find someone who looked like they were trying to unload tickets. After about an hour, I needed a beer because the whole thing was frustrating. There seemed to be no way of getting tickets to this show. So we all piled into the nearest pub and grabbed the nearest pool table whilst pouring beers down our broken throats.
After about 20 minutes I noticed a man on the sidewalk who seemed to be in the process of selling some tickets to a couple of frat boys with the backwards hats. My friend, Steve, went out and found the man. Several minutes later Steve came back announcing that the guy had some tickets for $40 and would meet us back in the bar. Success! There was nothing stoppin’ us from seeing Radiohead! Not the 90 miles between Milwaukee and Chicago. And definitely not the fact that the show was sold out!
The lads did not disappoint! Even though this was only their second album, they put on one of the best shows I have ever seen. The energy of the Metro was electric! They came out and played some songs off their album, The Bends, moved on to some of their older stuff off of Pablo Honey, and then returned to the new album and played “Fake Plastic Trees.” Of course everyone in the room was waiting for “Creep,” which thankfully they did NOT do as an encore. But once they ripped into the opening of the song, the crowd pulsated. It was exciting!
With Springsteen and with U2, I was still being mentored on music by my brother and the radio. By the time I had seen Radiohead at the Metro, I had stopped listening to the bad advice of commercial radio - except for the psychologist couch advice given to me by WMSE - and my brother had pushed me out of the nest. Radiohead was just the beginning of a new sort of music awakening. The lads got me back to Chicago and I had to do something as exhilarating as buying tickets from a scalper, which may not seem like a lot now, but back then it was liberating. Coming up, a road trip to the land of Lombardi and Favre to see one of my musical idols spread the gospel of DC Punk Rock.
Prost!
the confucian brewer