Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar
Mann Music Center, Philadelphia, PA
5 August 1981
Billy Squire opened
This was my first concert. During the summer of ‘81 I decided I wanted to go to this concert. I used my parents credit card to order two tickets ($8 apiece). The plan was for the neighbor across the street, Ricky Barab, to take me the 90 miles to the big city to this show. My folks had signed off on this and I was excited.
A couple days before the show, Ricky backed out for some reason. This put the whole event in jeopardy. Since I was underage, I certainly wasn’t going to be going without someone else driving me.
My father offered to drive me to the concert. The plan was that my sister was going home from college that day. She could take the train into Philly. We would pick her up at the train station. Dad would then drive us to Fairmount Park and then he would go play bridge somewhere in the city. Looking back, this was awfully noble of my father.
When he pulled up to the Mann and scouted the scene, my father told me to go to the box office and see if there were any more tickets. He wanted to chaperone his children. Sure enough there was so in we went.
The Mann is an amphitheatre. My father was in a wheelchair. So we sat as far back on the lawn as one could so my father could be with us. It was a full event and the show started. Billy Squire opened. I very much enjoyed his set, which was short. Stroke Me was the big hit at the time and the place rocked.
Soon after, Benatar took the stage. I was young and I very much enjoyed her. I think Dad did too. This was back when she used to wear the tight leather. My father sat there all night smoking a Royal Jamacian as they carried stoned and drunk people out by us all evening. Dad was working on his doctorate at the time and he wrote a paper about the evening for an Adolescent Pyschology class he was taking.
Also blogged on this date . . .
- X Marks the Spot - 2008
- Sunset at Higbee Beach - 2008
- Bad Cache Containers - 2007
- I Feel Lucky to Be Alive - 2006
- Inconsistencies Abound on Big Green - 2005
- Thundercrack - 2005