On Monday, June 24, 1985, HERC purchased two pairs of general admission tickets at the Dillard's Box Office at Park Mall, one pair each for two upcoming concerts scheduled a week apart near the end of July at Compton Terrace. (While out and about that day, he also picked up a few records.) Plans to attend a third concert (Eric Clapton on July 21st) fell through due to HERC having to work that night being unable to find anyone to trade shifts with. The first concert would be Power Station on July 23rd and the second show would feature Lone Justice opening for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers on July 30th. Coincidentally and probably unbeknownst to HERC at the time, Clapton, Power Station and Petty would all perform at Live Aid in Philadelphia on July 13th.
HERC intended to take the same beautiful, brown-eyed girl to both concerts but she got ill the day before the Power Station show and talked HERC out of staying home and eating the tickets and into taking his 16-year-old little sister along. Compounding his disappointment and the awkwardness of attending a show with his little sis, HERC favorite Robert Palmer had decided not to tour with the band and Michael Des Barres took the stage as the vocalist. HERC's sister seems to recall that synth-pop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) opened for the band though HERC has been unable to confirm this although OMD did indeed open for Power Station the following night in San Diego so it is quite possible though they had Spandau Ballet opening for them a week prior in Texas. Because she was a huge John Taylor fan, HERC bought a Power Station program/tour book for his brown-eyed girl.
Luckily for HERC, the pretty lady got over her illness in time to accompany him to the concert the following week where they both had a wonderful time. A few months after that magical night when hometown girl Stevie Nicks (whose father owned Compton Terrace) joined the band onstage for four or five songs, HERC made a mixtape for his lady that featured the music of Tom Petty and Ms. Nicks. That tape is known as mixtape X in the alphabetical mixtape series HERC made for the future MRS. HERC and it is the reason we are gathered here today.
The tape, with no jcard and only a faint "X" marked on the black plastic casing itself (our attempts to scan tape and show the X were fruitless), is a compilation of HERC's favorite Tom Petty songs up to that point though it is notable for missing two songs from the band's eponymous debut album: "Breakdown" and "American Girl". HERC is fairly positive he had the album at the time though his collection had been ravaged by friends and ex-friends so maybe it was one of the albums he would later find out he was missing.
Any memories of there mercurial Maria McKee from that Tom Petty show? (Sad to say, though a big fan, I never saw her with Lone Justice, though I have seen her solo on six or seven occasions).
ReplyDeleteI'm a little fuzzy but I think we were late to the show, catching maybe just 3 or 4 Lone Justice tunes of which "Ways To Be Wicked" was one.
DeleteI wanna say Ms. McKee was in great form that night though the one memory that sticks out for me, and I can't say how accurate it is, is she was wearing a sundress with cowboy boots and owning it.