A Kinky Thing Happened
on the Way to the Coliseum
The Kinks, Seattle Coliseum, 1983
It’s hard to believe that it has been over twenty years since my first make-out session at a rock concert. Given it was my second rock concert, I figured these were pretty good odds. I quickly became an ardent concert attendee, buying tickets whenever I had saved enough allowances to do so. After several dozen concerts under my belt, let’s just say that my percentage was considerably higher back then. But that night, I was a stud.
Now, if you’re doing the math, you will figure that the year was around 1983 or so. And you are correct. Picture it if you will: the Van Halen boys are crankin’ the most rowdy, shameless rock party songs to date, and I’m there at the front, tongue locked in a square knot with some hotty who just happened to look my way as David Lee Roth screams, “Everybody WANTS SOME! I want some TOO! AAWWOOOOWW!!” My buddies are all nearby, gaping in amazement as I go at it with youthful vigor. And that’s exactly how it happened, that slightly rainy April evening at the Seattle Coliseum. Except for the Van Halen part. Actually, we went to see the Kinks.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I love the Kinks. To be honest, there never would have been a Van Halen, or at least not as we know them, without the Kinks. For that matter, there never would have been a massive tongue fest at the Seattle Coliseum one slightly rainy April evening without the Kinks (high five!). All the same, it just doesn’t seem like the kind of place where that would happen. Think about it. The Rolling Stones in Frankfurt, with beer-fueled frauleins in tiny little European summer party outfits; now that would be a story. Or how about Robert Plant’s triumphant return to the stage after Zeppelin, where I could have been kidnapped by any of the many older rocker chicks who would have eaten me alive and left me worshipping the Hammer of the Gods forever for making it possible. Hey, even a story involving illicit drug use, an old friend celebrating her twenty-first birthday and her first, second and third Guinnesses, and Jethro Tull would have made for an awesome, yet heart-crushing tale. But as fate would have it, I get the Kinks. But hey, the rest is quite primo, at least for me, so read on and enjoy this epic tale of adolescent romantic conquest.
For some reason, I hardly remember many details from this concert. But let’s see if we can set the scene for our younger readers. The year is 1983. The rock world is a little schizo at this time. Top artists like Van Halen, Motley Crue, The Police, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, and Prince (if you must include him in rock) reign supreme. U2 is on the rise. The Kinks, beloved veterans of the British Invasion, had returned to the charts with the single “Destroyer,” which was really a re-make/reconstruction of two Kinks hits from the 60s (“You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All the Night”). There were a couple other hits, but I can’t remember what they were. From the success of this album, “Give the People What They Want,” the Davies brothers released the follow-up (and runner-up), “State of Confusion.” Somehow, “Come Dancing” became a big hit on rock stations and, after carefully excising the eight measures or so of Dave hitting three electrified barre chords over and over, the Kinks became a crossover phenomenon by penetrating the heretofore impenetrable easy listening charts. Regardless, my friends and I decided to see the show. After all, these were the Kinks, a bona fide British legend, almost as popular as the Beatles for a week or two in 1965, if I remember correctly. Anyway, we all headed to Seattle on a school day, which made it even cooler. We all had permission because we were decent kids, and our parents rewarded us from time to time. So remember, kids: if you behave, and obey your parents, your will get more freedom, which means more chances to go make out. Brains.
Now, a couple of us, namely Eddie and I, had a minor problem. As we hopped off the Metro bus outside the Seattle Coliseum, we had yet to secure tickets for the upcoming festival of sixties glory. We walked up to the ticket booth, praying the show would not be sold out. (We were kids. What did we know?) To our horror, the ticket booth attendant told us she could not sell us tickets to the Kinks concert. Sonics tickets, now that was a shoo-in, but no Kinks tickets.
Our hearts sank. Jason, Matt, Paul, Jim, and I think even Clint, they all were to have satisfaction, while Ed and I would have to stand in the rain, in a heavy downpour. We couldn’t get tickets; it was a sold out show.
I cried aloud in agony, “It’s SOLD OUT! WHY GOD? WHY?”
The attendant looked at me with pity. “I didn’t say it was sold out.”
We looked up at her in astonishment. “It isn’t sold out?!”
“Uhh…no. It’s the Kinks, kid, not INXS.”
“Where can we get the tickets?” we asked her, our mouths dripping with anticipation.
“At the Bon, downtown. Cross the Seattle Center to the Monorail station. Take the Monorail downtown and walk two blocks to the Bon Marche. Hurry! They may not have many left!”
Off we went, like Knights of the Round Table hot on the trail of the Holy Grail. If only Providence would smile on us this one time, Ed and I would be able to beat out a few stragglers and snatch up the last couple tickets. We zoomed through the Seattle Center: around the International Fountain, through the Fun Forest, stop and throw a couple rounds of softballs at milk cans or something, and up the ramp to the Monorail. For those of you who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, including Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia, a monorail is a train that runs on one rail. What can I say? We’re weird up here. They say monorails are safer, but if trains on two rails can fly off the tracks, I would reckon one rail would at least double the odds.
Anyway, after playing some twenty or thirty rounds of basketball shots, I walked away with a nicely fashioned Sylvester the Cat doll considerably larger than my thumb. We waited a few minutes for the Monorail, hopped on and were whisked away on a single two-foot-thick beam of concrete.
This was some sixteen or seventeen years before one of these trains caught fire, so we were still pretty confident about the safety of our twenty-something-year-old Monorail. In fact, we didn’t even think about the fact that, had something gone wrong up there, suspended some thirty or forty feet over the street, there was no way we were going to escape. And we did it all for the Kinks. Rock and ROLL!
Anyway, we reached downtown, raced to the Bon, and took the elevator all the way up to ticket services. Floor 12 or something like that. That’s to discourage surging crowds, or so we figured, and it worked. When we got to the booth, there were two people ahead of us. If only they didn’t get the last tickets…
Finally, after what seemed like forever, we got our chance. “We’d like tickets for the Kinks, please!”
The lady behind the glass looked at us and said, “Oh, are they still around? Huh.” In almost no time she had the tickets for us. It was a happy and bonding moment for Ed and me. Ever since then we’ve gotten together to talk and reminisce every twenty years or so. Come to think of it, we’re a couple years overdue right now.
Anyway, we raced back to the Seattle Center, where Jason and all the other guys were waiting in line for the zone tickets. This was Seattle’s way of handling crowds in the aftermath of the Cincinnati tragedy, when crazed Who fans trampled each other to death in order to get to the front. The way the tickets worked was simple: the line was sectioned off into thirty-foot portions, and each portion received a different color ticket. Then, when the doors were opened, you had to wait for your color to be called.
We, of course, were too smart for this. We could see that there were a fair number of sections ahead of us; we were doomed to stand in the rear third of the floor section, or festival “seating”. This would not do. So, since everyone was milling about in their respective sections like so many cattle, we would just wait until we were at the front of our section. Then, after looking around to see if the coast were clear, we would duck beneath the rope and into the next section. Jason and I managed to do this about four or five times before someone got all ticked off. That was fine with us; we were in Section Two by then.
Jason: You should also mention our super-cool technique for advancing WITHIN each zone. See, once we snuck into each successive “zone,” we had to make our way to the front, to facilitate sneaking into the next zone. To do this, we would pretend that a friend of ours (always named “Pat,” for some reason) was waiting for us at the front. “Pat!” we’d shout, as we squeezed past other people who had been waiting much longer than us, “Pat! We’re comin’ dude! I’ve got your hot dog!”
We received the treasured zone passes, and then wandered about the Center looking for ways to get into trouble, like climbing up the giant concrete flying buttresses of the Coliseum and sitting up there until the police told us to come down or they’d run us in. That was, admittedly, an incredibly stupid thing to do. Kids, let me tell you now, if you’re at the Key Arena (as the Coliseum is now called), don’t climb up the flying buttresses. I know you can tell I’m a dad now, but really, just imagine how well you would do in a 50 mph fight with a slab of concrete.
Jason: There was also the International Fountain, but you can read more about that in my Tom Petty story, so I won’t go into it here. But it was cool.
Anyway, it was time to line up to enter the Coliseum. We gave the attendants our tickets, went through the very thorough search process which made sure no six-foot bongs got inside, and made a break for the front of the stage. As fate would have it, there was a section of wall still available for us when we arrived, and we grabbed it and held on for dear life.
After things settled a bit, we got to talking with the security for the show. They were pretty cool, and they appeared to possess secret knowledge. We decided to press our luck and ask about the “Special Guests” our tickets promised. The guard looked around a bit, more for effect than to keep out of trouble, and told us, “It’s the original Kingsmen. You know, ‘Louie Louie’? The singer is a State Legislator now. How often do you get to see that?” Now this was quite a surprise. The Kingsmen? I mean, if you thought the Kinks were old, the Kingsmen were a good ten years or so before them. To be honest, I had just assumed that they were probably all dead by the time of the Kinks concert. But, lo and behold, there they were, ready to rock our socks off. How would they do? We could only wait and see…
Jason: Well, senior citizens or no, I’d rather watch the Kingsmen any day than the originally rumored opening act: Musical Youth (“Pass de dutchie on de left hand side, pass de dutchie on de left hand side…”).
It was around this time that I noticed this very cute young lady next to us. I don’t know how the conversation started, but I do remember when, after we had a couple laughs together, she and her friend started talking quietly to each other. You know, “girl talk” and stuff. Finally, Christine (I think that was her name) asked me, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Christopher Reeve? ‘Cause you do, only his eyes are ice blue, and yours aren’t. But hey, you still look like him!”
Wow. Now, I don’t know how much she was pulling over on me, but that told me my chances were kind of good for the present. All I needed to do was remain steady, and not be a dork. Which wasn’t easy.
Christine was a pretty girl, that’s for sure. She was slender, with straight, dark brown hair that fell just shy of the shoulders, like a bob, I guess. She did have ice blue eyes, like Christopher Reeve, only she was far more attractive in my book. Our conversation ended briefly as the lights went out. It was show time.
This was the moment of truth. The Kingsmen hit the stage. Aside from the fact that they were all a little pudgy, and that they weren’t much younger than any of our parents, the Kingsmen were truly professionals. They really had nothing to lose, so they let it all hang out. Man, they really did rock the house! True, all I remember at this point about the Kingsmen performance is that they did “Louie, Louie”; the singer was an animal, jumping all over the stage and shaking like he was having a grand mal; and that Christine was less than two inches from me for most of the show! Right on…steady, boy. Just be cool.
When the Kingsmen were done, Christine and I continued our conversation, flirting and giving each other “the eye.” We were truly driving each other crazy. We both knew we wanted to lock in an embrace, but were too afraid to make such a bold move. Clearly, the brothers Davies would have to weave their magic in order for this to be more than just another disappointing story about how Eric could have had a fleeting moment of pubescent joy, but he blew it when he opened his mouth.
Once again, the arena got dark. The fans started shouting. Christine and I started jumping up and down, partly to cheer, partly to tease each other just a little more. Finally, lights started dancing about the entire stadium and, over the PA system, a deep voice announced, “This is the STATE OF CONFUSION!” The lights came up on the stage, and there they were!
It was a great performance; they played all the songs everyone loves, including “Lola,” “All Day and All the Night;” “You Really Got Me;” “Low Budget;” “Captain America Calling;” “Father Christmas;” and “Destroyer.” A very simple yet cool feature was the stage setup. The stage had two little projections at the ends, so Dave could step out among the fans and be just within reach of their flailing arms. Christine and I were located in the corner of the projection at stage left, Dave’s main area. Being a guitarist, I found this to be quite cool but, being a heterosexual teenage male, I found it even cooler that I had this gorgeous young lady I had met just hours before in my arms. I could still smell her perfume, despite the heat and the time and all, as I stood behind her and had my head next to hers. I think the Kinks must have played some sort of ballad or love song, though, because at some moment I gathered up the courage to turn my head to her cheek and neck and give her a little kiss.
Boy, howdy, was that ever the perfect moment! Christine turned her lips to mine and we were in hog heaven! I don’t remember anything after that. The show might have lasted another couple hours, or maybe fifteen minutes. I really don’t know. All I do remember can be boiled down to two things: one, Christine was beautiful, had very soft skin and was a great kisser; and two, Dave gave me one nasty look.
Perhaps I should explain. You see, whenever Dave Davies stepped out on the projection at stage left, he was putting himself in immediate danger of being pulled into the audience. During the final encore, when they played (naturally) “You Really Got Me,” Dave stepped out on the projection. Each time before the fans would grab at him in vain as he pulled back from their adoring grasps. This time, however, the fans (including myself) were ready.
Dave stepped out onto the projection, and immediately about five fans reached out and grabbed his legs. Dave was stuck. Now, all I wanted to do was touch his beautiful Gibson, and I did. The only problem was that while I was doing that, some jerk reached up and grabbed the guitar, the whole damn thing. There is simply no way to describe the sound that emanated from the amps during the scuffle. Suffice to say it did not mix well with the rest of the band. As Dave wrestled with this jerk, my hand was just touching the body of the guitar (and I haven’t washed it since). Dave finally pulled away and got out of the grips of the fans, only to have my fingers make contact with the volume knob on his guitar. As a result, he had no sound coming from his guitar. He looked around desperately, trying to figure out what was wrong. When he finally figured out what was wrong, he looked right at me like he wanted to kill me. It was a true accident, but I didn’t know how to tell him that, so I went back to making out with Christine.
What a great concert.
Jason: Being our first concert, Jim and I got kinda freaked out by the “wild” crowd at the front, and had retreated to the bleacher seats by this point. Every few minutes, we could see Eric through the surging audience, placidly getting his freak on with Christine. Then came Dave Davies’ solo moment, and an arm that I was pretty sure was Eric’s reached up… after which, our ears were assaulted by a noxious, grating burst of guitar skronk. We saw Dave angrily slap away the arm that appeared to be Eric’s, then stalk back to center stage, where he animatedly complained to Ray Davies, punctuating his diatribe with eloquent finger-pointing in the direction of a guy we assumed to be Eric.
So, Mr. Davies, if you’re reading this, please accept my apology and try to understand that I would never, could never deliberately cause you such problems.
As for Christine, we walked out into the light April rain, kissed each other goodbye several times, and parted, never to see each other again.
So, Christine, or whatever your name is, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for such a wonderful evening. I will never forget you.
