The B-52's (with the Violent Femmes) - Lawlor Events Center, Reno, Nevada - October 14, 1992

After seeing so many shows in Sacramento and the Bay Area, it was a welcome change to be able to drive around the corner to see the B-52’s at Lawlor Events Center.

I have been listening to the B-52’s since sixth grade. My friend Courtney at St. Teresa’s brought their first yellow album to school; she had borrowed it from her older sister who was in boarding school in California. I remember listening to the “Mighty 690” an AM radio station from LA that I could pick up at night, with Rock Lobster (and Tainted Love) in pretty heavy rotation. I bought that cassette and listened to it to death, along with every other B-52’s tape I could find. I loved their silly songs all through the 80s, and I even bought Fred Schneider’s solo album – with the lovely song – Monster.

When we finally got to see the B-52s, they were still riding their second wind after their 89 album “Cosmic Thing” and Love Shack, which became the Rock Lobster of the 90s. They were touring for Good Stuff, which we got for free at some special event sponsored by the local radio station.

The show was this really lame set-up with folding chairs on the floor in front of the stage. We had pretty decent seats, but it was really frustrating because it was so hard to dance. The B-52s are not a sit down and behave kind of show. Everytime someone went into the aisle or tried to stand on their chair the security Nazis came over and scolded him or her. During the mandatory encore, Fred Schneider goofed on the security guards by changing the lyrics of Rock Lobster to, “Oh no, it’s Security!”

This was the last show I saw at Lawlor. Not like anything I ever wanted to see really came there – but I was in no hurry to get back.

The Ramones (with Social Distortion) - Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA - October 10, 1992

When you’re in your teens and twenties, you go to shows and tend to look around at those over 40 in wonder that they would still consider spending an evening hanging around with a bunch of “kids” listening to loud music, dancing, drinking and smoking pot. In the case of the Ramones, while there were a lot of college kids and younger, probably at least half of the crowd were former hippies (or wanna be former hippies) who now had good jobs, kids, fancy cars and more disposable income to spend on such things. This made for an interesting evening for us twenty-somethings.

The Ramones were on tour supporting their youth revival generated primarily from their song for the soundtrack of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. While they’ve never been known for their brilliant lyrics, Pet Sematary was not their most seminal work. Like most self respecting alternative types at the time, we had been listening to the Ramones since high school, but I suppose we were not nearly as offended by Pet Sematary as the Baby Boomers who surrounded us.

I believe this time it was myself, CF, PCH, DA and I think his girlfriend at the time, K. I don’t remember a lot about K other than where they lived together in Reno and that she was the first person I ever met who bought an all black computer, which I thought was the coolest.

The show was outside at Greek Theatre and it was a beautiful fall night to see a show. Social Distortion, one of my favorite punk(ish) bands anyway, opened up the show and were pretty fabulous as I remember. A lot of the older crowd came filing in late, during and after Social D played.

The thing I remember most about the show were the group standing behind us. I think there were two or three couples together (5 or 6 people, similar to our little crowd) and they must have worked hard to score some pot before the evening. I imagine 10-20 years earlier they wouldn’t have thought twice about it – but during this show they were kind of nervous and awkward, which made it pretty funny to watch. You could tell they felt really cool once the Ramones started and they were all stoned, probably just like the old days. While it was funny to me, probably the only annoying thing about it was that they were so nervous that I thought that they were attracting more attention to themselves than necessary, and because my friends and I didn’t smoke pot, the last thing we wanted was to get busted for some idiots who didn’t know how to get away with it anymore. ‘course it’s not like that ever happens at a concert…you can get reprimanded for smoking cigarettes but you can always smell the pot.

On a grim note, you know you’re getting older when people from bands you’ve seen start to die. While Joey Ramone was probably not the first of the rock stars who has passed since I’ve seen him perform (Ricky Nelson and that guy from Blind Melon come to mind) he was certainly the most famous and one I admired. When I look back more than a dozen years to how indestructible my friends and I all felt in our early 20s, it makes me realize how quickly life moves on. Now I’m one of those oldsters going to shows and getting ogled by all of the young folks in the audience.