120382 The Who Farewell Concert Ticket Onsale Lineup, Toronto, ON

It’s not like I grew up before the invention of computers or anything, but when I was a kid they were still a very rare and wondrous thing.  Even into my teens computers weren’t the sort of thing the average person would see on a daily basis or ever, really, aside from geeky enthusiasts who bee-lined to the local Radio Shack on Saturday afternoons to try basic programming on a TRS-80 (of which, it may surprise you to learn, I was one).  I was in my twenties before computers started popping up everywhere; before that the closest most people would get to a computer would be colouring in tiny circles on standardized school testcards with a #2 pencil and imagining that the card would soon be be fed into a large whirring machine by some nerd wearing a lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses.

(Oh, how I dreamt of being that nerd!)

All this is preamble to remind and inform people that back in the day if you wanted a concert ticket you had to go out and buy one somewhere, and if you wanted a hot concert ticket you had to go to that somewhere pretty early and line up, sometimes for hours.  And you know, as much as I appreciate the convenience of booking the latest ticket from the comfort of my easy chair I gotta say I wax nostalgic about those old days of lining up.

Now, allow me to tell you about the greatest of my line-up-for-tickets experiences, which was also my first.  And I will save you the future disappointment of discovering that I ended up not even going to this concert by telling you now: I didn’t even end up going to this concert.  If I had gone to this concert it would have been my first concert ever, and not only that, it would have been a doozy:

The first ever last ever concert by The Who: Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens, December 17th, 1982.

The shows were announced rather late – in November I think – and the tickets were set to go on sale on Friday, December 3rd at a soccer field called Lamport Stadium in Toronto’s west end.  I wasn’t a Who fan at all but a) I was at least partially aware of the historical significance of the event, b) I happened to be in the middle of a three-day suspension from my job at Grade 10*, and c) my aunt said she would loan me the money for two tickets if I picked up two for her (in an era where concert tickets were still under $10 The Who was charging the unheard of high price of $21.50 apiece).

So, I was in.

I donned my tattered black leather jacket and black t-shirt (de rigueur for young scallywags at the time) and hopped on the bus from Richmond Hill down to the stadium.  I arrived on Thursday morning, a full twenty-eight hours before the tickets would eventually go on sale.  There was a well-established self-regulated line snaking around the small outdoor venue and I found my spot at the end, right behind a cool-looking long-haired twenty-something dude who was busily loading a two-four of Labatt’s Blue into a styrofoam cooler.  “Want a beer?” he said, holding one out to me.  “Sure!” I replied, my fourteen year-old eyes widening with glee.  

Just then another cool longhair took his place behind me in line.  He shook my hand (hippie-style of course) and pulled a baggie full of pre-rolled joints** out of his jean-jacket pocket.  “Whattya say we have a smoke?” he asked quite rhetorically and we were off.  After a short while a biker came by with a clipboard.  He explained that his motorcycle club (was it The Outlaws?) had been hired to “do security” at the stadium and that the first 1,000 people in line would get their names on a list, then they would be free to go home and come back at the allotted onsale time.  Nobody believed it would work out that way but I got my name on the list just in case (I recall my number being 422) and nobody left.

Especially me.

What happened for the next day and-a-bit flashes through my memories today as a series of hedonistic vignettes that taken together outline the greatest time of my young life.  There are way too many gaps to describe the experience in detail but the flashes tell the story of an unhinged inexperienced wannabe-hoodlum coming-of-age and cutting loose with a reckless abandon that he had only ever dreamed of, and one that would shape the next few years of an unthinking, inconsiderate, and utterly selfish quest for unimpeded fun, free of any repercussions or responsibilities***.

I remember dancing and flailing atop the ten-foot brick wall that surrounded the stadium, I remember adding empty beer bottles to a giant Who logo in the parking lot, I remember making out with a girl in the back hatch of what was probably a Honda Civic, I remember standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a crowd of thousands as the sun came up.  I remember coming out of a hazy, sleepy daze crammed, and I mean crammed, together with a bunch of people.  Looking around I noticed we were a bit higher up than most of the crowd, and reaching down to feel the ground beneath my feet I quickly realized that I and about thirty other people were standing on top of a car.  Honest to goodness I have no recollection of getting there.  It’s not like we were specifically and intentionally standing on the car, we were standing in line, and the line was (in part) on the car.  Imagine explaining that to your insurance agent.  By that time the crowd had swelled to about 6,000 and the parking lot was a landscape of people rising and falling along with the contours of several now-wrecked vehicles that were parked in the lot.  

I also recall that the tickets were supposed to go on sale at 9am or something but they went on sale around noon.  Amazingly, the number system did indeed work, when my number was called I went to the gate, confirmed my name, and was directed to the ticket booth.  I walked away from there with four on the floor, 21st row.

I forget who I intended to go to the concert with.  It could very well be that I had nobody to go with as I sure didn’t have a lot of friends at the time; okay, I had pretty much no friends at the time, and wouldn’t really until I grew out of the scallywagging (which took until my early twenties).  But I do remember deciding to sell the tickets when the band announced that the concert would be broadcast on television.  Having not been to a concert before I had no idea that being in the room itself made a big difference; newb that I was I figured I would have a better view watching the show on TV so I sold my pair.  I did pretty good too, I think I got $125 apiece for them.  

Yes, I was such a scallywag that I easily and without regret scalped the tickets to what should have been my first concert experience.  If it’s any consolation I have long since learned to regret doing this.

But I sure don’t regret lining up for them.  My goodness that was fun.

*Oh, I was a right scallywag in this era.  I had decided I was done with school but wasn’t old enough to quit so I skipped class until they kicked me out (a punishment that I thought was hilarious) until they finally brought in the cops – yes, the cops – who informed me that I had to attend classes or they would take me to juvey (aka juvenile delinquent hall; aka prison for underagers) where school was strictly enforced (as were a million other things that I wasn’t interested in doing).  So I went to school, sat in the back, caused trouble and failed all of my classes.  I recall getting 10% in three of my eight classes that year, with my highest mark landing somewhere in the 30’s.  Oh, my teachers hated me; one even slammed my head against a row of lockers (three times…bam, bam, bam; he later apologized).  I suspect they had nightmares about me.  The more I age the worse I feel about it.

**When I was in high school (the first time) pot was always and exclusively sold in the form of hand-rolled spliffs that were kept bundled up in a sandwich baggie.  The prices were always $3 each, 2 for $5, 5 for $10, and could be purchased (and usually smoked) in any high school bathroom.

***It’s an era I’m not proud of, but I did indeed have a whole pile of fun.