My television viewing is fairly limited. I like the occasional movie or Netflix series but mostly it’s sport and politics. So at the moment it’s the first cricket test between Australia and England and opinion shows on Sky News Australia and Fox News from the USA. I know that last bit will get me branded a racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, climate denying, white supremacist by the socialist doctors’ wives collective but such are the burdens we who espouse common sense and human nature as our fundamental political tenets, are made to carry. For the child bride it’s who-dunnits, real estate, food and politics. She hated cricket until she met me.
Anyway, to the point of all of this. Last night in the early evening, we had exhausted the TV options so put on some music. If one is going to drink, one is much happier with accompaniment. When I say we put on some music I don’t mean we downloaded onto my phone some stuff from the iTunes Store and bluetoothed my phone to a stand alone speaker. I mean we physically took one of hundreds of CD’s from our CD cabinet, put it into a CD slot in our stereo player and turned up the volume. Call me old-fashioned.
The CB chose Melissa Etheridge, someone who would have no truck with my TV viewing choices, I’m sure. But then her sexual preferences don’t particularly appeal to me and her choice of father for two of her children (carried by someone else incidentally) – David Crosby – implies some potential genetic foibles down the track. Notwithstanding, we like her music. In fact we like it to the extent that we’ve seen her in concert, twice.
The first time was December 1995 when she accompanied The Eagles on their Hell Freezes Over Tour. The second time was in April 1996 when she toured on her own. And that, in a very roundabout way, is the subject of this very digressionary missive.
The concert was performed at an office building site which was then occupied by Festival Hall. That same office building now houses our financial advisor. Considerably more fun was had there when it was Festival Hall until it was demolished in 2003. Great concerts in a cosy environment included Yes, The Eagles (on their 1976 tour), Status Quo and, of course Melissa. Plus there was boxing and cheering for the bad guys while being showered with blood at World Championship Wrestling (RIP legends like Skull Murphy and Killer Kowalski). And the wrestling was legit back then – really. But not as legit as what we saw after the Melissa Etheridge concert – I’ll get to that. We even went to the Roller Game once – LA Thunderbirds v New York Bombers. I’ll never forget my father on his feet yelling “come on Ronnie” as Ronnie Rains literally ran round the track wearing roller skates and flung himself over a collapsed pack to win the game with seconds to go. That was legit too.
So, back to Melissa. On entering Festival Hall with the CB and her sister, I was somewhat perturbed to notice a paucity of males. In fact there was me and another bloke a couple of rows away. We exchanged nervous glances and girded our loins for the oestrogen express that was about to shirt-front us. We were seated in an elevated spot on the side. There was a seating area on the floor in front of us and a large block of seats was unoccupied until a few minutes before the concert when an army of buzz-cut flaunting, overall wearing, brickies labourers arrived. I think it was a busload of the Gold Coast chapter of Muffs Anonymous. And they were all pissed so you can imagine the hijinks….and the noise. To their credit though, they did confine the raucosity to between songs.
Melissa was thrilled she had such a devoted cheer squad which was basically everyone there except me and the other bloke (and the CB and her sister). And she played up to them by at one point commenting on how hot it was and how “moist” she was. The sisterhood swooned with orgasmic delight. Two people rolled their eyes. At that point I started to feel really sorry for her backing band – all males. After a rock concert usually the band (and the roadies) can look forward to the star’s cast-offs at the after-concert party but there would be no nooky for these poor bastards unless they were gay and played with each other both on and off the stage.
An ablution solution was also problematic for the girls (the straight ones). Neither of the two sitting with me had the courage to relieve themselves either alone or collectively for the duration of our time there. For me and the other bloke – not a problem apart from running the gauntlet of what could potentially be a resentful and hostile clutch. I’d have rather invaded a Hells Angels clubhouse dressed as the Village People policeman.
To give Melissa her due, she put on a good show and no doubt incited all manner of goings on afterwards. The Gold Coast bus driver would have seen some shenanigans through his rear-view mirror on the way back to broad beach, sorry Broadbeach.
However not everyone was happy. As the throng made its way down Albert Street towards the carpark a hullabaloo started somewhere close by. There was a lot of shouting as a red faced, ball fisted, hellcat stormed through the crowd, obviously looking for someone. That someone had attended the concert without her now apoplectic “friend” and she was cowering only a few metres away from us.
“Where’ve you been, you cunt” screamed the hellcat. And before the poor girl had a chance to open her mouth, HC smacked her with a right hook that wouldn’t have been out of place inside Festival Hall when Hector Thompson was on the card (you’ll have to look him up). She went down like the proverbial bag of shit and as the obviously alpha member of that partnership glowered over her beta’s shaking, crumpled body, we made our way to the carpark lest she make eye contact with one of us. You can’t beat a bout of brutal lesbian violence to round-off a pleasant evening.
