Calobo (1997)

I had never heard of Calobo before this show.  I was in Portland going to Grad School and had some great friends that also lived there that I knew from Michigan where I grew up.  They invited me to see Calobo and to hang out for the day.  The Rose Garden is a beautiful outside amphitheater in Washington Park and like the name implies is IN a beautiful rose garden in Portland, Oregon.
This show was in August and the weather that day was amazing ~ Calobo performs really well and the sound of the band is original and innovative. They have played live at the Crystal Ballroom in downtown Portland as well, but I was happy to see them this day ~ outside, in the beautiful amphitheater, with sunshine ~  and with great friends ~

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!

The Fisher Theatre is beautiful and it was a wonderful production ~ and impacted me deeply.  When I listen to the CD of the musical I can still remember being Row C, Seat 13 that night.  My Mom and I often get the songs stuck in our heads and can start singing them together without really even thinking about it.  Then we have to get the CD out and re-live the experience of Les Miserables.