It’s not like I’d never been to a big concert before. Laurie and I went to Tears For Fears last year at the local NHL hockey arena. This Depeche Mode thing was different, though, and now I’m sitting in the little room with an unlit cigarette between my fingers wanting so badly to smoke.
The band was awesome. We had tickets on the floor, dead-centre. The girls behind us kept screaming, which was annoying. They obviously only knew about Depeche Mode since Route 66 started getting played on AM radio.
I went with Brian, a guy I had gone to school with since second grade. He’s been at university in the east, but is back for the summer. He was always cute. We were always friends. When he called and asked if I wanted to go of course I said yes. But when he picked me up he was acting weird. I think it was a date.
When I went to Tears For Fears with Laurie we sung along and danced. But this was a date (I think) and I wouldn’t subject Brian to my terrible singing voice, and I didn’t want to dance, because what if he couldn’t. So we stood, side-by-side, and still until it was over. Then we clapped.
He drove me home and we both talked over each other about how great the show was, but not how bad the date was. We sat parked outside my parents’ house forever, doing this, until he kissed me.
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Image: Depeche Mode photographed by Frank Griffin/Rex, Reuters.
Welcome to the Little Room is a series of 250-word re-imagined vignettes from my ’80s youth with a focus on music and style. It appears weekly on periodicult.com.
