Eurythmics (with Underworld) - Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium, Oakland, CA - November 19, 1989

I was just reminded that today marks the 15th anniversary of this show. So I guess this is a good time for me to blog it. Lots of good stories around this day, hopefully I will document them accurately.

At the time, the Eurythmics were my friend PCH's absolutely favorite band. He collected their music like he collects a lot of other such items – obsessively. A few years ago he paid a couple hundred dollars for two 45” singles of obscure songs from their early days. Not sure if he is still trolling e-bay looking for Annie Lennox recordings from the BBC or some such things…in between getting the latest Biolante movie from the Pet Store…but ah, I digress.

There are some of us who are so lucky to have their first concert be their favorite band. PCH is one of those people. We had enough people signed up to join him on that happy occasion to warrant bringing two cars. BGA and K took PCH in their car, while CA, CE, CL, Shannon/Shay/Kathie and I took my red Subacrusier wagon. We planned to follow each other up to the city and all meet up at the show together.

Luckily, since this was in the days before cell phones, we did stay close together, because less than 50 miles or so out of Reno K’s car began overheating. It was some old Renault or something like that, and I guess it was notorious for such issues. We pulled over at some exit off of I-80, near the turnoff for Nevada City, I think, and spent around half an hour waiting for the car to cool off. I remember that the rest of us played with a nearby salt dispenser while we were waiting.

Finally, after a while, BGA and K decided that we shouldn’t wait any longer. PCH hopped in the wagon, and they waved goodbye, assuring us that they would go home, trade cars, and we would see them in Oakland. That was pretty much max capacity for my car, so Shannon had to sit in the waaay back.

We took off and finished the rest of our little road trip to the bay area. It was a bit eerie, since the Loma Prieta earthquake had happened on October 17 and the SF Bay Bridge was still closed. Luckily we didn’t have to go into the City at all for the show, though Oakland (the bad part) was damaged enough to still have a lot of boarded up buildings.

The show was at the Henry J. Kaiser arena in Oakland, a venue I’ve never visited again – this is the only concert I’ve ever seen in Oakland. We were surprised we didn’t get to go backstage since Shannon’s Dad was friends with Henry J. It was a pretty nice place, and old-school formal theater. I remember the bathrooms being quite elegant.

The opening act was Underworld. They had some stupid song about a bouncing ball and the guy pantomimed it on stage during the song. Many years later though, I would buy an Underworld cd out of choice. Born Slippy is a great song, if you’ve ever seen Trainspotting you won’t forget it.

The show itself was really quite fabulous. I wasn’t the biggest Eurythmics fan in the world at the time – though I had listened to Sweet Dreams and Touch incessantly back in 84 with JS (see 1st TTwins blog). The band was really tight, Annie Lennox sang beautifully and they did some really great acoustic tunes. That part of the show with Annie singing and Dave on the guitar still strikes me as one of my favorite music memories.

During the show, CA snuck in a camera and snapped some pictures, and then almost got in a fight with some large man/woman (we weren’t really sure) – well, he hit him/her in the face, but nothing too bad ensued. We had pushed our way up to the front and it got kind of crowded in there. At one point during the show, Dave Stewart came out with a primitive looking camcorder and panned over the crowd. Months later, PCH bought the video, and with the magic of slow motion and pause, we found ourselves there in the video, thanks to CA and the flash on his camera.

Shannon played the martyr and decided to stand in the back of theatre to wait for BGA and K, so we didn’t see her again until after the show. Unfortunately, they never made it, and PCH still has their unused tickets in a frame. You can see a similar image if you follow the links from here.