Why does Duran Duran remind me of Keith Richards? It was 1984 and I was insane about Duran Duran. They were coming to the Meadowlands Arena but the tickets were impossible to get. Somehow, my dad came through with 5 tickets and I was suddenly the queen of my high school. My friends literally fell over themselves trying to suck up to me so they'd get to go. It ended up being me, my friend Marla, my cousin Dana, and my dad and 6 year old sister (I wasn't happy about that because it didn't seem cool at the time but my sister and I are now very close and I still periodially apologize to her for being mean to her that night).
That night we dressed up like Duran Duran-- baggy cotton jackets, white Capezios, fedoras-- and covered the car with signs advertising the concert that drove my dad crazy because we ruined the paint job on his car by using sticky tape. When we got to the show our seats were terrible; they were practically in a different county from the stage and so high up you could shake hands with God the Father. My dad was a professional fireman and a lot of his friends worked security on their off days, so he tried to look around for someone who could upgrade our seats, but no one he knew was working this shift.
I was not content to just stay in the seats fate had dealt us, so I scoped out the entire arena and noticed a section up near the front that was empty and cordoned off with velvet ropes. Somehow I managed to convince my dad that we should go sit in that section, promising him that if the rightful owners showed up we'd go back to our nosebleed seats. Dana, Marla and I sat in the front row of that section and we made my dad and sister sit behind us (they were eating popcorn and it embarrassed us that they'd dare to EAT at a Duran Duran concert). The show started and we were having fun dancing and screaming and totally forgot about the seat situation.
About an hour and a half into the show a dark, scary-looking man and a very beautiful blonde woman showed up and tapped us on the shoulder politely. "You're in our seats," the man said. They looked vaguely familiar but I ignored them-- the show was already half over and at that point I felt we'd earned our seats. When we didn't respond he said it again. This time I turned to him and snarled, giving him the finger. "The show is halfway over, we're not moving, go find some OTHER seats!" (Normally I was better behaved than this but I became insane when it involved Duran Duran, and it was too loud and dark for my dad to hear or see me.)
To his credit, the scary-looking guy laughed, and rather than having us kicked out of the seats, he and his wife sat down in the row behind us, next to my dad and little sister. Then my dad started poking me in the back. I ignored him as well, until the end of the concert when the lights went up. The odd couple was gone, having left before the first encore, but my dad was very eager to tell me something. "Do you know who that guy was, the one you gave the finger to?" (Uh oh, I guess the cover of darkness wasn't enough after all.)
"No, who?" I asked.
"That guy from the Rolling Stones...what's his name? Keith Richards?" My dad was not a rock fan but this was a face famous enough for him to recognize, only I'd missed it because I was too busy mooning over Duran Duran. If I ever meet Keith Richards again I'll apologize to him for my rudeness and tell him how much I admire his patience with a group of crazy teenage fans.
Unknown "Reaper's Angel" Sleepy
- 16 years, 5 months, 5 days ago
