Project Ticket Stub - 1980

1980. Chrylser gets its money (errr, our money). Cronkite retires. The "Miracle On Ice" at the Olympics. Khomeini and the hostage crisis sink Carter; Reagan wins. CNN is born. Richard Pryor plays with fire. Solidarity in Poland. And my generation was completely and utterly shocked by the death of John Lennon; to this day I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news, and my immediate reaction was to play the Plastic Ono Band album.

Being a poor college student, I didn't see a whole heck of a lot of shows in 1980, but there's no arguing with those that I did see...

The Who The Checkerdome, St. Louis, MO April 28, 1980 Of all the shows that I cannot remember, this one bothers me the most. How the heck can I have absolutely no memory of seeing The Who? None. Nothing. Absolutely nothing! I mean, come on, no memory of Roger Daltrey or Pete Townshend at all? Sigh, wasted youth. (Literally, I imagine.) On the positive side, ticket prices were still pretty sweet - just eleven bucks.

Grateful Dead Boston Garden, Boston, MA May 12, 1980 Now this concert I remember! As I recall it, school in St. Louis wasn't quite out yet, and on Saturday a couple of friends (Howard and Fletcher?) asked me if I wanted to see the Dead on Monday - in Boston! Heck yea!

So the three of us set off on Sunday morning in my 1970 Chevy Impala. I remember we drove to Boston via Brooklyn, NY, which is where Howard was from. I distinctly remember having breakfast at Howard's mom's house in Brooklyn before driving to Boston. We might have spent Sunday night in Brooklyn. And I remember we drove back to Brooklyn again before heading west to St. Louis. I remember we picked up a girl hitchhiking somewhere along the way, and she had us drop her off in a scary part of NYC in the wee hours of the morning; we were all worried about her, but she was a whole lot tougher and braver than the three of us college boys.

I figure we must have driven about 2,500 miles round trip to see this one concert.

As for the concert itself, I remember a great He's Gone > Drumz as my highlight. And yet another U.S. Blues encore -- that makes it four U.S. Blues encores out of my first five Dead shows.

Yes The Checkerdome, St. Louis, MO September 25, 1980 My third Yes show. Too bad I really don't remember much about any of them. I have some hazy memory of them playing "in the round" - they played on a slowly rotating circular stage. But I don't remember if that was at all three of the concerts I saw, or just one or two of them.

Bruce Springsteen Kiel Opera House, St. Louis, MO October 17, 1980 Oh for crying out loud, you'd think I would remember something about this show, wouldn't you?

Jethro Tull The Checkerdome, St. Louis, MO October 26, 1980 This will turn out to be my last Tull show for a long time. Sometime in the late 90s or thereabouts I saw a nostalgia Tull tour at Club Casino in Hampton, NH. But it will be a long time until I get to that ticket stub.