The Res, Part 4

Residence was distracting. Which was fun, but not always a good thing. There was always music playing somewhere in Res. Transistor radios, tape decks, full on stereos, LPs and all. There was always someone wandering the hall, hanging out in the common room, someone knocking someone else up (read what you will into that). One learned to tune it out, sometimes having to close one’s door to do so. Sometimes one just needed some alone time. Sometimes alone time was one on one. Sometimes alone time was to actually do homework, to study, and to have that, one had to close one’s door.

But who am I kidding? My door was open more than it was shut. I was having the best year of my life, so sometimes distractions are a good thing. Distractions were good for burning off excess energy and stress. God knows I was a neurotic mess that year, after Haileybury, after Roxanne, and other issues I’d been carting around with me for some time, like having almost died that summer, for instance. I was open to all distractions. And in Res, there was no shortage of them. Someone was always in the know about what might be going on, and we all wanted to hear about it, whatever it was. It was impossible to keep things quiet when there were about 200 people living in close proximity, and who would want to? We were all 18 to 20, most of us, anyway (there was one 17-year-old from Quebec in Res; what he thought about our carrying on is anyone’s guess), and we were running free for the first time, with not a moment to lose. News spread rapidly, largely unfiltered.

Like when Triumph came to town. Word had spread before the posters were up. As most of us were from the North, few of us had seen a “big” concert. The big acts had begun to bypass Timmins by then, and most of us were newly legal, so more than a few of us hadn’t even seen a band in a bar yet. Triumph was not to be missed. We all still had disposable cash then, we all bought tickets, the cheap seats, obviously. The Sudbury arena was packed, the floor swaying with people, all seats full, lighters lit and sweeping side to side. I don’t know what impressed me more, that sea of flames and the communal energy, or the actual show. Rick Emmett ran up and down and around a runway that ringed the stage while playing. I had little to compare it to. Most of my experience was in long narrow bars, the band held in place by a small crowed stage, speakers piled high to low ceilings, the bass thumping my lungs and spine, my ears screaming by night’s end. The sound was alright, I suppose, but we were at the far end, so it was a little muffled as it bounced off the back wall. No complaints. I had a great time. Friends, music, live show; what’s not to love.

Later, we saw ads for a transvestite show. We just had to go. Deb shocked me. She said that one of the crossdressers was the best-looking woman she’d ever seen and wanted to take “her” to bed. “Hey,” was the best I could come up with on such short notice, wrapping my arms around her. That earned me an elbow.

Brian Adams came to town with Luba in the early spring. Brian Adams! “Reckless” had just come out. Hits were unveiled by the week. The man was becoming a superstar overnight. And he was coming to Sudbury! Luba was a smaller scale star in her own right. Everyone was thrilled. I was not. There was no way I could go. I was short of money by then, my annual loan from my parents still weeks away. Deb was tapped, too. So was Evan. Everyone else had apparently budgeted better than we had, or so it seemed, because just about everyone we knew rushed out to buy tickets. We were jealous. And depressed when the day finally came. The floor was delirious with excitement. One of our circle took pity on us. Mark Lewis invited us into his room. “Have fun,” he said, as he swept his arm over his component stereo and LPs. And pointed out some new finds, to us at least: REM, The Smiths, the Cure. There were so many, more than I had collected, and he being from down South had been exposed to so much more, so many genera. It was like being given the keys to a candy store.

So, after we saw our friends off, we surveyed what we had at hand. A couple beers each, more than enough smokes, enough stuff for a couple joints. We began to leaf through the albums. Not one Brian Adams. We were okay with that. We began with his suggestions. Not too loud. We wanted to talk. We did. But we also found ourselves floored by Michael Stipes’ droning “Radio Free Europe” and then “So. Central Rain,” by the Cure’s layered reverb, Johnny Marr and Morrissey of The Smiths. Joy Division. So much new and known New Wave. Post Punk. It was like a new religion. Heaven. Deb wanted to hear acoustic guitar, fingers sliding down strings, so we searched for that, too.

Mostly, we talked. And laughed. And almost forgot that were missing the concert of the year. Time passed and before we knew it, the floor was back, their echoes rolling down the halls.

They crowded the room, eager to tell us all about it. The girls gave a more than detailed description of how Luba was dressed, argued about song order, and how they called out their requests, and what requests. Then Brian Adams, white shirt blazing under the lights, jeans as worn-in as jeans ought to be. Song list. How loud. How good. How great. And then came the best description of all. How idiots in front of the stage began hurling beer cups onto the stage. Brian Adams demanding that the crowd stop. More empty cups flew. The show pressed on. But come the end, Brian Adams leaned into his mic, cast a cold stare across the gathered floor, and declared that Sudbury was the worst crowd he’d ever played for and that he would NEVER be back. He backed away from the mic, accepted the silence and then the boos with grace, and walked off.

“Wow,” we said, eager for more detail, for what more there was to tell. “Was he right to say that?”
“Oh, yeah,” our friends said. “The crowd was full of drunk assholes!”

It’s been over 30 years since I missed that show. I’ve always regretted it. But in retrospect, had I gone, I wouldn’t have had those hours with Deb and Evan. And maybe spending those hours with my best friends was more priceless than any concert. No, not maybe. Definitely. They were the people I loved most in the whole world, then.