1982 by Jian Ghomeshi Read Free Book Online Page A

sensitive song that featured the following lyric at its dramatic conclusion:
    I wanna hold you till I die
    Till we both break down and cry
    I want to hold you till the fear in me subsides.
    You probably know that song and that end part. And that sentiment would strike a very poignant chord in therapy sessions a couple of decades later. But at the time it didn’t seem very cool. This massive hit had led Dan Hill to pretty muchdefine the middle of the road in music. He was very real and organic. He had a bushy beard and no gel in his hair. He wore baggy trousers, the kind that allowed for “room to breathe.” He also performed with bare feet. He probably didn’t have any pointy boots. Dan Hill was not very punk.
    My father was impressed that Dan Hill could perform a whole concert of songs by himself. “The Dan Hill! He ees on stage for two hours! He ees playing all of the songs heemself! For two hours! Honestly, it ees great!”
    My father called him The Dan Hill. He didn’t really know any Dan Hill songs. I’m not sure he had heard much of Dan Hill before the concert. My mother had told him that Dan Hill was a very nice new singer and that with admission to Ontario Place we wouldn’t have to pay extra to see him—so it became a family outing. But my father was clearly impressed with Dan Hill’s stamina. The Dan Hill. I saw my dad’s point, and I decided Dan Hill was impressive, too. But when I told Toke about Dan Hill and how he had played for two hours, Toke told me his older brother said Sabbath had played for longer. And regardless of his stamina, I would soon renounce any appreciation for Dan Hill. He was not New Wave. He was not cool. Of course, many years later, I would decide Dan Hill was a very good songwriter. Just like Billy Joel and Joan Jett. Cool can change.
    When I turned thirteen, I finally graduated from going to concerts with my mother and father. I knew it was important to curate my personal gig calendar. It was simple: if I went to cool shows, I could tell other kids that I had gone to cool shows. Part of the trick was to try to always smell like smoke. If you had a jean jacket or a mod army shirt that smelled like smoke,and especially if you were a non-smoker, other kids would know you went to a lot of concerts. I was not a smoker, but in the early ’80s all concerts were filled with older people smoking cigarettes and pot and hash. Mostly they smoked cigarettes. This was cool. Smoking meant that you understood music better and that you had a carefree but serious vibe. It was also sexy. Bowie was holding a lit cigarette on the cover of Young Americans for precisely this reason. And so, even though I was an asthmatic and didn’t smoke, I tried to smell like smoke.
    It was impossible to go to a show in the early ’80s without getting caught up in wafts of cigarette exhaust. Even in big places like Maple Leaf Gardens, the whole concert would be blanketed in clouds of smoke. This was not just manufactured by machines onstage the way it is today, it was the power of the collective, sucking on their cigarettes and blowing. If you were a young teen who wasn’t savvy enough to sneak into bars, concerts were the main place to go if you wanted to come home reeking of smoke. This was an aspiration. Two decades later, smoking would be banned at live shows for health reasons. This made sense. It was much better to go smoke free for health reasons and for unimpeded sightlines at gigs. But it never felt the same as when everyone was lighting up and being unhealthy. That was real cred.
    I started going to concerts with my friend Murray Foster, who was playing in our band, the Wingnuts, in Grade 8. I was the singer and drummer of the Wingnuts and Murray was the guitarist. Rob Mundle was the third member of our band, and he also played guitar. He was a year older, so he had a good amp. We didn’t have a bassist, because both Murray and Rob wanted to play guitar and refused to play bass. Ina strange twist,