The Gig

Even though I know I’m getting older - the luckiest among us do - inside I still struggle with the idea that I’m an actual, bona fide, adult.

But I had the best of adulting this week, because when I found out The B-52s and Devo (and yes, they are all still going) were playing the Hollywood Bowl, I didn’t have to ask my Mum and Dad if I was allowed to go. And, I mean, what's the point of working frankly if you don't get to treat yourself from time to time? So like a real, proper grown-up, adult, I paid for tickets myself.

I went to the gig with my big pal, and brother from another mother, Jeremy. There was no point going with Mark. Mark is three years younger than me, and that meant that when I was 15 and loving the B-52s, and Devo, he was still focused on trying to do wheelies on his bicycle, and proclaiming girls were stinky.

Though, to be honest, I think that as the youngest of four, and both my brothers having been in bands, maybe even at the time I was pretty ahead in my musical taste. I introduced my classmates to music I heard from my siblings: Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Siouxsie and the Banshees. The B-52s, and Devo. I listened to them al over and over again on my wee record player. And even now, all these years later, I still remember the best weekends of my 15-year-old life had been when I’d saved up enough money to buy an album and I’d go to Glasgow, returning home on the train with my 12-inch vinyl treasure in hand.

Anyway, now as a full-grown bona fide adult, there are times I wish I could send a postcard to my younger self, with helpful hints. Not just stuff like ‘get a pension now’ or “don’t get a perm” or “mixing a bottle of Pernod you get from the illegal off license with blackcurrant juice really is not classy” but real, actual helpful information.

For example, this week’s postcard would have gone something like this…

Dear 15-year-old Lynn,

Saying something is yours, does not make it so. You can be hurt. You can be angry. But you will look back on this one day, and you will see the sense in it. And weirdly, you will be grateful.

My bestest pal at school, Pamela, didn’t particularly care for Devo, but she tolerated me going on about them at great length. She also tolerated me droning on and on and on about the local bus driver’s son, who I very much had my eye on.

When I was 15, Devo arranged to do an actual gig in Glasgow and my obsession with them hit fever pitch. I droned on and on and on about the Devo gig for months. I so wanted to go, but my Mum and Dad thought I was too young to go alone and wouldn’t buy tickets for two. There was nothing I could do to wrangle my way through it. There was no way to make it happen, and I believed that to be the worst feeling in the world.

That turned out not to be true, of course. One day at school, Pamela told me that the bus driver’s son had asked her out on a date, and that they were both going to go - on the bus - and see Devo together in concert. That actually did seem like the worst feeling in the world.

I literally couldn’t get my head round it. Pamela didn’t even particularly like Devo, or the bus driver’s son. And she was my bestie. The one I had told all my secrets to. Of all people, why her? And why had she said yes? I felt betrayed. Broken-hearted. At school, of course, I pretended to be fine with it, but inside I was destroyed.

Afterwards, she said the gig was ‘ok’ and that Devo were ‘good’, and I think she and the bus driver’s son went on a couple of dates, but it never really came to anything. But it marked an absolute ending for me. There was no drama. No more secrets revealed. And slowly but surely, I got myself a new bunch of friends, as did Pamela, and I stopped listening to my Devo albums, and that time of life was over.

So then, over forty years later, I am no longer living in Cumbernauld, but here in the Valley instead, and I hear that Devo and the B-52s are playing the Hollywood Bowl -and no amount of chicanery has ever stopped me loving the B-52s - and Jeremy and I decide to go.

Here’s a scary fact for you: if you ever want to come face-to-face with the fact that you’re aging, go and see a band that you absolutely adored as a teenager, because you will find yourself surrounded by people who are from your era. And when you see who they are, it’s impossible to ignore who you are yourself. And as the Hollywood Bowl holds 17,000 people, that’s a whole lot of impossible to ignore.

Big colored hair and stripey tights. Strange hats and mini skirts and crushed velvet and sparkly shoes. Close-to-retirement guys in flowerpot hats. Blokes wheezing from the walk uphill boldly wearing T-shirts ambitiously proclaiming they want to “dance this mess around.”

There were old fans and new fans, but mostly everyone was somewhere around my age. And there was not one 15-year-old who dreamt of a great romance with the bus driver’s son in sight.

Until the music started that is, and then of course there was.

Because 17,000 teenagers trapped in bona fide, adult bodies danced to the beat. And as the old songs whirled around, a gazillion memories of hope and wonder, regret and betrayal flooded back in glorious and ridiculous vivid technicolor. Dance halls, and bars, and parties, and streets where we walked, and kitchens where the radio played, and traveling back from Glasgow with an album in my hand. Loves that were lost and loves that were found, and my mother's stern but sympathetic expression when she said I really was too young to go to a concert by myself.

Standing with my big pal Jeremy in the Hollywood Bowl and looking around at all the shapes of life who walk this planet at the same time as us, I figured that everyone probably had stuff they’d like to have told their teenage selves.

We are all of us just hopes and dreams and wants and desires wrapped inside roughly the same shape of skin suits. We get older, because we are the lucky ones. But inside we are still young.

Over the years since school, I’ve met Pamela a couple of times. Whenever I do shows in my hometown, she will come. She married a lovely guy from school (whose father doesn't own a bus) and she has kids - and grandkids I think - and she really does seem like a nice person. She’s made a good life. And she has other besties who aren’t me. And I have other besties too.

But I have never bumped into the bus driver’s son. Though I’m pretty sure if I did, I probably wouldn’t recognize him anyway.

A fact that would have been inconceivable to my teenage self.

Anyway, mostly the helpful hints that I would send to the younger version of myself would revolve around the theme of “Stop being so willing to embrace sorrow. Please just recognize unhappiness for what it is - a helpful proclamation that it’s time to change direction.”

Although the one postcard I would have sent to 15-year-old me this week would go something like this.

Dear 15-year-old Lynn,

Everybody gets their heart broken sometimes. We each just have a different soundtrack. It will be ok. It’s really just part of the gig.

Oooh and PS, honestly, one day you’ll wonder what you loved so much about Devo. But you’ll never never not love the B-52s

Yours sincerely,

Older on the outside, still young on the inside,

Bona fide, real adult,

Lynn xo

PS: If you post a wee click on the heart emoji to like it, it would be almost as awesome as travelling back from Glasgow on a Saturday with a brand new 12 inch vinyl LP- that’s not really true obviously, but it won’t half do wonders for my algorithm.

P. P. S: If you enjoy talking/listening/stories/ random facts, come and join me and Mr Tweddle at Fish and Bear. This Thursday we have a one off test event at the Lawless brewery. For details and booking go to Fishandbear.net

And because I am totally showing off - look, I have books for sale.

Available now: US, UK, Can, Aus

If you do buy anything, please leave a review on the site as it helps people know that I write in proper sentences… erm sometimes xo

The Gig - Audio

* Photo compiled from a public domain publicity shot and a Creative Commons licensed picture.