If I'd only been a little older ....

I might have mentioned before that it's a slight disappointment to me that I wasn't born just a little earlier so that I could have experienced the music of the early to mid '80s while it was happening. This reminiscence about going to see a New Order show reminded me of that, though I'm not saying New Order would have been my band of choice. (I definitely would have shown up for Throwing Muses as the opener though...) I could easily have found myself in the situation below. (Ned Raggett/HTV)

And so like I said I already knew what “Fine Time” was when I heard that guy sing that and the album followed hot on its heels and so when I heard they were playing I wanted to go. But therein another problem — I didn’t have anyone to go with, and I wasn’t too sure how to find them because I needed a ride and all.

Which in retrospect feels completely ridiculous to me — it had to have been at the time, because I definitely remember others in my dorm (hell, others on my dorm floor) talking about the show after it had happened and how great it was. Which it was but I’ll get to that — the point is that somehow I was still too clueless or too shy or too something to figure out who else was going or to get a ride. It’s a classic blank spot there, not something I think I’ve specifically wished out of existence, just something, again, ridiculous, utterly crazy. The more so because I do remember getting very, very antsy about something I would completely shrug off now, but at the time seemed like a foreign world to me: