New Order - Shoreline Ampitheatre, Mountain View, California - July 24, 1993

This second time I saw New Order was a truly memorable event for a number of different reasons…again, all loosely related to the event itself.

I’ll start at the beginning….as with most shows, especially those out of town, we purchased our tickets for this one pretty far in advance. It isn’t like today, when you need to buy U2 or Dave Matthews Tickets six months ahead, but basically, we bought stuff probably a month or two ahead of time based on when we heard about the event. With New Order, I probably heard about it about the same time tickets went on sale, as I was a pretty rabid fan.

In between purchasing the tickets and the actually show, CF and I had a rather messy breakup. I need to make the disclaimer that I am bitter or anything – we remain very close friends to this day and he will probably be reading this blog sometime – but, I am just stating a fact. It was pretty awkward, and honestly, I expected that he was just going to do the chivalrous thing and say, hey, take my ticket, and offer it to someone else to go with you.

But no. He liked New Order too, was looking forward to it, and wanted to go. I don’t remember much about it now, but I suspect we fought a bit about it but resigned that it we were still going to try to be friends, so it was okay for him to go.

On the way to the show, right around Donner Pass, I remembered that I had left the concert tickets at home, and we had to turn around to go back and get them. I guess it could have been worse…I could have remembered in Mountain View! For a long time, we joked about this on these road trips – “oh, I forgot the tickets, psych!”

We went with MM and then picked up CA along the way. This was probably one of the first and only times I hung out with her. I think we picked her and her brother up near Sacramento, then dropped him off in Berkeley. The car was too small really, so I remember C riding in the back.

There were three bands – 808 State, The The and New Order. We basically missed 808 State because of our lateness. Then The The came on and played only a few songs before their sound went to crap. Luckily, I saw them again later, opening for Depeche Mode.

After New Order, we spent the night at CS’ parents Chicken Ranch in Gilroy, California, where he was having his annual shindig. Now he lives in Tacoma and has it an Oyster Ranch instead. I got to see him and have sushi with him last summer in Portland.

The Chicken Ranch was one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. It’s hard to describe – a fabulous, sprawling house in the middle of nowhere. Large trees and other beautiful vegetation. Many different things to explore all around and inside the house. And there were a lot of pretty cool people there having a party. It was a great time.

The next day after the show, we went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival, quite a famous event in the Bay Area and one we always heard about growing up. PCH, that dog, got in for free with his press pass. The rest of us had to pay $8 for the honor of seeing a bunch of stupid craft stalls, seeing some lame bands, and having to buy more garlic-laden food. The only free food inside was the garlic ice cream. And yes, that is as gross as it sounds. It was a total waste of an afternoon. And what made it worse was that we had to ride home in PCH’s small Subaru wagon, sans air conditioning – with all of us sweating garlic in close quarters.