Nikka Costa (2001)

I attended this show with a friend who really loves Nikka Costa. I had not heard of her before we saw this show at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve heard of her since the show in Hollywood.

Oh snap.

Seriously, though, I was not impressed with Ms. Costa or opening artist, Miranda Lee Richards. I was, however, happy to take in a show at the famed Knitting Factory (my first show at that venue).

Ok.  Here goes.  This one time, my woman wanted to surprise me for our anniversary. She blind-folded me, put me in the car and started driving in the direction that I now know to be east.  I’ll skip the details of the next 4 hours, blind-folded in the car, lots of cd changing, stopping for junk food and many pee breaks.

We ended up in Las Vegas and I thought that was my surprise but no! That was just the beginning!

Debbie told me to get dressed up… which i thought was strange and she was acting strange.  Then she told me that we were being driven somewhere and we had to go meet the car downstairs (we were staying at the Hilton).  We waited  in front of the Hilton for a short while until a limo pulled up.  I didn’t read the sign on the window of the limo until I got in … and then I knew what I was in for… We to be married by Elvis!  Nice surprise wedding…

Elvis was in rare form, he sang Love Me Tender (of course) and at the end of the ceremony a pretty decent redition of Viva Las Vegas… we danced and sang and all were merry.

The next night was the true gift!  Barry Manilow Live in Concert!  I love me some Barry.  Yea I said it. I love Barry Manilow.  He played all the old stuff plus some new tunes.  The theater was packed.  Someone told us that he flies home every night to his home in Palm Desert after each show.  I thought that was awesome.  If I were Barry, I think I’d do that too.  He seemed like he was at home there at the Hilton in Vegas, the perfect venue to see an extrodinary performance.

Transvision Vamp (1991)

I have great memories of this show. Or rather, I am told great things happened at this show. Lemme explain:

I was 21 years old in 1991, and I had a great friend guru, named Ernie. Ernie is probably 10 years old than me. He is a brilliant, eloquent, tall brother with enormous dreadlocks and fantastic taste in music.

Throughout my late-teens and early 20s, Ernie introduced me to countless wonderful things: art galleries, new music, audiophile equipment… and drugs. I never did much in the way of drugs, but what little I *did* do, I did with Ernie.

Ernie was the type of guy who could take all the drugs and drink all the booze in the world… and yet you’d still trust *him* to do the driving!

We saw a lot of shows together. Different types of artists. Laurie Anderson, Cocteau Twins, Prince, Ministry… and this band called Transvision Vamp, who were a British alternative band, fronted by the Marilyn Monroe-esque Wendy James. Contemporaries of similar female-fronted acts such as The Heart Throbs, Primitives and Darling Buds, the band was best known for a couple of late ’80s, pop-catchy earworms: “I Want Your Love” and “Baby I Don’t Care.”

The night of the Transvision Vamp show, I took no drugs. But I did overindulge on whiskey.

As previously mentioned, Ernie was seemingly impervious to the negative effects of drugs and alcohol (if memory serves, he did 10 “whippets,” dropped 2 hits of acid and polished off a fifth of Southern Comfort before the show. And, yes, he drove us to Detroit.).

Anyway, during one of Ernie’s numerous trips to the concession stand for more beer, I apparently made my way toward the front of the stage. I don’t remember too much about what happened next, but Ernie explained it to me the next day:

“So I’m walking back into the venue holding two beers — one for each of us — and I look up to the stage just in time to see some asshole climb up on stage and… wait for it… stage dive into the crowd. This guy was stage diving at a Transvision Vamp show, right?

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘who is this asshole?’

“And then it occurs to me, just before the asshole disappears into the crowd.

“‘Oh, it’s Ben.’” (that’s me.)**

[** author's note: Names changed to protect the innocent and alarmingly stupid]

I don’t remember making the decision to stage dive at a cheezy pop show, but I vaguely recall Wendy James giving me the stink-eye after I got up there (and the size of the bouncer running from the side of the stage with murderous rage). I definitely remember how it felt when everyone in the audience moved out of the way of my diving body. I was like Moses parting seawater (minus the impressed witnesses, of course). I definitely remember how it felt to land on that hardwood floor!

Yep. I’m that guy. Sigh.

Man, what a fun show, though!