While cleaning out old files a few months back, I came across a pile of ticket stubs for concerts I attended in college and shortly after.
These days I typically stash ticket stubs in the case of the corresponding CD, but back in the day I bought albums on vinyl. So the ticket stubs quietly piled up. And now, I’m foisting them on the Internet.
Starting, for no particular reason, with Lou Reed, 1986. The Orpheum was (and perhaps still is) a terrific place to see a show, particularly if you have seats in the first few rows. At the Orpheum this meant waiting in line outside the theater until the tickets went on sale — which I could rarely do, being a semi-conscientious college student. So, for this show we were back a ways, but it was still grand.
The opening band, if memory serves, was The Smithereens, excellent as well.
Sometime around the middle of his set, Lou Reed talked about how he’d done lots of interesting things in music and art and so on, but in the end he would probably be known for “writing the Honda Scooter song.” He seemed a little frustrated about it. But he played the song anyway.
Video link thanks to Screenhead, who also points to a freaky Dunlop commercial that uses the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs.”