That Time I Ended Up In The Ladies Room At Dancetaria With 3 Rock Stars

Dancetaria

It was the winter of 1983. I was in New York City with a few of my college radio compadres for the CMJ Radio Convention. CMJ as in College Media Journal - the folks who brought us the monthly CMJ New Music Report magazine, which followed and charted the new music of the day being played on college radio stations across the United States. I think they called the convention the CMJ Music Marathon.

We were having a blast attending panels that were focused on the drastically changing music scene of the early 1980s. My fellow DJs and I were meeting all of the new artists, like Cyndi Lauper (Girls Just Want To Have Fun had just been released), Richard Butler of Psychadelic Furs (they weren't a new band, but Love My Way was new, and the song was quickly moving up the charts and

DO YOU REMEMBER FACE TO FACE?

Debut album cover 1982

One of my all time favorite bands from the '80s was Face to Face. Laurie Sargent was the lead singer. Stuart Kimball played lead guitar and is actually the one who formed the band in the '70s in New Hampshire. Angelo Petraglia also played guitar and keyboards (he also produced a Kings of Leon record for which he won a Grammy in 2010). John Ryder was on bass, and Billy Beard on drums. I

Bigger Than Ratt: The Time I Had a Moment With Jon Bon Jovi

(1985) It was one of those slap me moments. Or grab a piece of my arm and twist. A "shut up!" moment. Sadly there were no cell phones at the time. No Facebook or Twitter. There were car phones, but they were like clunky army field radios with wires and boxes, and they were super expensive. I suppose I could have pulled over and pretended to my passenger that I needed to make an important pay phone call to the radio station where I worked for some bullshit reason and then really call my friends and tell them I was driving the back streets of Providence, making my way toward the Civic Center with Jon Bon Jovi riding shotgun in my beat-up AMC Spirit.

THAT TIME THE CLASH PLAYED ON OUR CAMPUS

The Clash onstage at SMU 1982.
Photo by Dave Warren

This is an amazing photo taken by my friend Dave Warren. We had the Clash play at our college (Southeastern Massachusetts University) in October 1982. Right after the program council booked them, Combat Rock was released. The day tickets went on sale, the campus center was overrun by fans who had traveled from across

Chrissie Hynde Was The First Rock Star I Ever Met

I had been doing college radio at Southeastern Massachusetts University's WUSM for almost one year when I met my first genuine rock star. Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. The band played in our campus gymnasium on November 3, 1981. All of the members did radio spots for our station. We were playing the hell out of their records. MTV had launched only three months earlier and were already playing the band’s videos. I was just in awe of meeting and having the chance to speak with them and then watch them perform. Chrissie Hynde showing me for the first time that a woman could rock just as hard as a man.
Before the show, I was walking down the hallway toward the band's dressing room. I had

GERRY'S GIGOGRA'PHY - Every Concert I Ever Attended (Almost Every...)

This is the history of the '80s concerts I attened. I've included the first few concerts I ever attended in the late '70s. Those were the few shows that I paid for and are marked PAID.  Those where I was on the guest list are marked COMPED for complementary.  And if I met the band, I write Met Band. I've also added concerts attended in my post-radio days.

A Few of My Actual Ticket Stubs

1978 through 1979

Thin Lizzy & The Outlaws – Cape Cod Coliseum (September 3, 1978) - PAID

The Cars, Eddie Money, Bob Welch, Todd Rungren – Hartford, CT (Summer 1979) - PAID

The Kinks – Southeastern Massachusetts University (1979) - PAID

1980 through 1989

The Allman Brothers, Bonnie Raitt – UMass Amherst (Sat. May, 10, 1980) - PAID

The Pretenders – Southeastern Massachusetts University (Nov. 3, 1981) – COMPED – Met Band

U2 – Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA (November 14, 1981) – PAID

The Police w/ GoGos – Boston Garden, Boston, MA (Jan. 15, 1982) - PAID

Human Sexual Response – The Metro, Boston (April 21, 1982) - $7.50 – COMPED – Met Band