The date is 10/18/90 and I head into National Record Mart in Westerville, Ohio to make my weekly music purchase. Because I was 19 years old, had cash in hand and was buying the first Pet Shop Boys song released since their Introspective album two years earlier.
I say song because I was buying this CD Single - because the Behaviour album wasn't out yet. I guess the record companies screwing you by forcing you to buy Cassingles (have some of those at home) as well as CD Singles (have these as well) is ok because we all know someone, who at some point in time, joined the Columbia Record Club under multiple false names in order to get 13 CD's for a penny.
But honestly, it's not my fault they didn't read the fine print and sold the masters which enabled that whole industry.
Anyway - I am so glad I bought this CD Single, not only because of the song (which totally fits the "Release The Sarcasm!" theme) but because of the fine print written inside. There, buried toward the end is a note that PSB would "conduct their first ever tour of the United States and Canada in 1991".
Mind blown. Been waiting for this since West End Girls was released in 1984. It truly sucks to love an artist that is from another country and you may never, ever see them live (I'm looking your direction Enya - who doesn't even tour! Anywhere! Ever!)
The first thing I had to do was head to OSU where I knew every bank on the planet was handing out credit cards with no credit limits AND free frisbees. Because I had to fund this trip somehow. I knew there was no way PSB would play anywhere in Ohio.
The next was dealing with the dreaded Ticketmaster monopoly. It's important to remember this is 1990. There is no "internet"; there are no "personal computers". The Camelot music store was the closest Ticketmaster outlet to my apartment. So I went there damn near every day to see if they had any information about the tour - dates, places, cost and when tickets went on sale. I became such good friends with the Camelot employees that today's equivalent would be how close Shannon became with all her Starbucks baristas at DC4.
I finally got the information, made my plans and bought my tickets the day they went on sale. The closest place was the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Which was way better than I was expecting (like NYC or L.A.).
So on April 4th, 1991, exactly 33 years ago today I was in Chicago with my best friend Aaron Martin. But not at the Chicago Theatre seeing PSB.
WTF.
Let this be a lesson in "to be early is to be on time; to be on time is to be late; to be late is to be forgotten."
Now don't jump to conclusions and think I screwed myself by getting to Chicago late. That is not the case at all. Chicago is only a 5 1/2 hour drive from Columbus and we made it with time to spare. The problem was the venue.
Apparently between purchasing the tickets the day they went on sale and the date of the show they had changed venues. Reminder: No email; No internet; no mobile phones; no GPS. So Aaron and I are mad scrambling trying to figure out where the closest Ticketmaster is so we can understand WTF is going on. Find a Ticketmaster and they can only tell us what the new venue is - the Riviera Theatre. They can't do anything about the tickets - we have to deal with that issue once we get to the venue - which not being from Chicago, we have no idea where that is. So we get the address, buy a city map and figure out A) Where we are, B) Where we need to go and C) How to get home from where we are heading.
So we finally find the venue - now we have to figure out where to park and not get towed. Park and head to the box office - which is a complete hassle because (if I recall correctly, because it was 33 years ago) the venue changed pretty early on - so right after I bought my tickets. The Riviera box office is wondering how I didn't know that. Oh I don't know - I live 350+ miles away and they didn't email me an update (LOL). They finally decide where they can seat us and let us in. And this is why I think I can't find my ticket stubs - they took the originals to swap for theirs and didn't give me anything back - they just ushered us inside.
The seats weren't great, but they also weren't terrible. The bottom line is we made this all happen before the show started. But at the time, it didn't feel like we were going to make it at all, what with Chicago gangsters and the shady neighborhoods I'm sure we had no business being in trying to find the Riviera.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. Though I will say the concert was not what I was expecting. It was more "Performance Art" than a typical concert. Maybe that's why they called it the "Performance" tour. And they performed this song.
Although this music memory is slightly pre-Shannon, this song has endured in our relationship. It's been a random "sing to each other sarcastically" song since 1992. Up to and including tonight...
P.S. For clarity, the buildings we worked in were called "DC's". So DC4 was the headquarters of Victoria's Secret Stores and they literally had a Starbucks in the lobby. So if Shannon wasn't at her desk, you knew where she could be found. DC7 was the headquarters for Bath & Body Works and they had a BBW store in their lobby. My final years were in DC5, the headquarters of Victoria's Secret Direct (web sales) - and they had a model of DC5 in the lobby. Not sure how that's fair.
Ghost of a Chance 