My first live concert

Good news for purveyors of laboured commercial pop. Coldplay have landed safely and are ready to unleash their own blend of formulaic, banal pop on South Africa. Not that I hate the band’s music. I simply disregard it and at the very worst I relate their songs to the fodder middle-aged 5FM worshipping squares, desperate trying to stay and in-touch with their departing youth. Hey, at least it’s not the return of Bryan Adams… AGAIN! But I digress. The band’s arrival here takes me back a billion years to my youth. My first ever concert was Depeche Mode. I know, readers, y’all getting green with envy? If not, you should, dammit! Oh vok, there I digress again.
I was 16 and a few hours old. My birthday present to myself was a ticket to see my most favourite band in the world (at that time): Depeche Mode. From a wee age I’d learnt to love them and depending on the stage of adolescence I found myself trapped in, I deified them to a degree (Hey, I was a virgin. What else was I going to do?) I knew nothing else but Depeche Mode and didn’t care much for anything else. I was young, dumb and full of a trenchant lack of musical diversity). So, in 1994 when I read in Top 40 magazine (who can remember that classic read?) DM planned to do the unthinkable and tour the Third World, I exploded with joy. With magazine in hand I sprinted to my folks. I fell to my knees and started that well-practiced chore of begging for something I wanted. The thing is I had a little something in my corner to back up my argument as to why the well-being of my youthful life (and my street cred and possibility of finally scoring with girls and not my hands) depended solely on seeing this band in the flesh. It was my 16th birthday that year and to refuse me this would be tantamount to child abuse. With the bomb-question dropped, my Mother stared at my Father, the awkward spouse dance soon ensued. 'It's your call. Can your back handle the trip to Joburg? What about school on Monday?' The reality of having to cave in to their adolescent son’s pleas started dawning on them. My Dad, having failed to avoid apportioning responsibility to his wife, had little option really but to agree. With adult/child negotiations done, it was time to start preparing for what would be the equivalent of my Woodstock pilgrimage, even though it was just a backseat trip in my parents battered car to that cesspool of kak - Johannesburg.
I paid for the ticket myself, a feat (and it was nothing short of that at the fresh that age) that seemed to impress my recently disgruntled parentals. ‘Where did you get the cash?’ my Dad half-heartedly enquired. ‘I stole it from you, naturally’ was my mental response. I’d actually saved it up from the 15 previous birthdays. Like I said, I was a sad, sad youngster.
On a Friday afternoon in February 1994 we headed off for the big smoke from Kimberley. Me, my Dad and Mom and all of Depeche Mode’s back catalogue. I'dspent weeks rubbing the noses of friends, acquaintances, homeless people and pretty much anyone who’d listen to me in the fact that I, little old me, skinny legs, acne skin and no sporting ability whatsoever,was going to see one of the most influential bands of our time(any arguments here?) live in concert.
Needless to say the trip to Shitsville… umm, Joburg, was a blur. My tiny mind was focused on only one thing – beholding Depeche Mode live.
Fast forward to the night of the show. My fretful Mother, baptised by fire by having to ensure her teenage son wasn’t going to be lured into slavery by the hordes of ‘miscreants’ looming around the Standard bank arena in the maw of Joburg, did her best to equip me for this alien experience as she tried to usher me through the throngs of people. ‘Don’t smoke the drugs. Don’t’ drink anything anyone gives you. Don’t leave your seat during the concert. Don’t’ make eye contact with anyone!’ The list was a veritable decree of parental neuroses.
Filing in to the stadium with the masses, my stomach curled into a knot. The sounds and smells (my first whiff of dagga), tempted me, but never quite secured my fleeting mind from the task at hand. I sought out my seat, taking in the mix of people. For what must have been a first in our newborn nation, Goths, sat cheek- to- jowl with bomber jacket-donning Afrikaners (hey, DM’s appeal is wide and vast). Preppy ‘Northern suburbs’ prissies, dared to mingle with so-called Grungeheads. This was the height of Grunge, remember. The arena filled up fast, another testament to not just how desperate and thankful South Africans were for a quality musical act following decades of cultural isolation. The opening act, the Outsiders, were simply a formality. Cheers of ‘Just can’t get enough ' made it very clear to the openers as they lumbered through their set that it was time.
The roars grew into… ummm, louder roars, the anticipation reached breaking point. Within seconds, a life time of waiting, 16-years of devoted listening climaxed into Dave Gahan launching himself onto South Africa’s first ever live taste of Depeche Mode. The rest, as they say, is hysteria. Much sweat was shed. Over-sized Doc Martens were well broken into. Baggy jeans flayed clumsily through manic attempts at quasi-moshing. It was my baptism minus strange dogmas and uncomfortable rituals.
I’ve been to many more concerts since then. I’ve witnessed U2 twice... live. I endured Jamiroquias (don’t ask). I saw Skunk Anansie in their hey day In Port Elizabeth (?) and have survived numerous Cokefests. I've even caught a live Fever Ray gig in Paris. But nothing to date has been able to trounce the thrill of seeing a band so embedded in my psyche in concert, surviving the mania, the elation of my induction into live music. For me even trying to recapture those 2 hours I spent in an alien city, by myself in a packed arena, surrounded by an assortment of freaks will be nearly impossible.