By Madeline Bocaro ©
https://linktr.ee/madelinerocks
I found some of my concert diaries. Lucky to have seen Iggy and Lou Reed so many times!! And this was only 1983!
January 27, 1983
Lou Reed tickets went on sale for The Bottom Line in NYC – 4 nights 8 shows, I got tickets for every show! I need a Lou Reed O.D.!!!
Saw Tina Turner at The Ritz because we knew that Bowie was going. Stood in the balcony right near Bowie – we watched him and Keith Richards laughing all night.
February 25 & 26 – Lou Reed at the Bottom Line – 2 shows each night!
I got on line at 4pm. I saw a guy walking like a penguin in the distance – it was LOU! My friends had left me alone to wait in line in the freezing cold while they went to cop heroin. Who is the bigger Lou Reed fan, ME, who waited in line all those hours to get the front table, or THEM who were nodding out through the entire show? (I guess that’s debatable!) They all shot up in the bathroom. They could hardly keep their eyes open all night. Why do they need drugs when we have LOU?! Someone said that every song was performed in the key of D, so that they were all vibrating on the same frequency. With Lou’s love of the drone, I’m not surprised – and there was something magical about it all.
Lou seemed was mellow and a little nervous at first. We wished he would tell us to fuck off or something, but he was just nice. We are still depressed (for over two years now) about John Lennon’s death. I still think about it every day. – can’t shake the sadness. Thank god for Lou.
The 2nd show tonight was even better. Lou did mostly new songs, but the ones from The Blue Mask were great! There was a long killer version of ‘Kill Your Sons’ – he went wild on guitar! ‘New Age’ was beautiful. And ‘Waves Of Fear’!!! I thought of John Lennon during ‘Satellite of Love’.
February 27 & 28 Lou again – 2 shows each night:
I wore The Blue Mask sweatshirt I made. Lou smiled at me when he saw it! Saw Brian Eno, Adam Ant and Andy Warhol sitting near us. Warhol was nodding off, and we were yelling, “Wake up Andy!” A man next to us said that I Iooked really high! Everyone around me was on HEROIN and I was the only one who wasn’t on anything!! On the way inside, they confiscated the paper bags we had brought in. The food is so expensive there so we always smuggled in snacks. They took my friend’s bag, but it had her hypodermic needles in it. They confiscated her food and let her keep the needles! She was shooting up in the bathroom during the show.
March 17, 1983 – Thursday – Iggy at Peppermint Lounge
Iggy was so great tonight. He wore black jeans, boots and a white shirt w/ a black leather vest and one gold earring. His hair is dyed shiny black and it’s long! He opened with ‘Loose’, then ‘Mass Production’, ‘Nightclubbing’, ‘Funtime’, ‘I’m Bored’, ’Sixteen’ ‘Endless Sea’, ‘Raw Power’, ‘Eat or be Eaten’, ‘The Villagers’, ‘Street Crazies’, ‘Bang Bang’, ‘ Run Like a Villian’, ‘I’m A Conservative’ – so wonderful He loved the crowd so we were treated to an encore of ‘Real Cool Time’, ’96 Tears, ‘Waiting for the Man’! And ‘I Wish You Would’! AND ‘No Fun’! He came to me many times, sat down right in front of me and sang to ME! During ‘Bang Bang’ he sang – ‘I wanna be a slave/I wanna be a sadist’ – how adorable! He even went into his little miming fits of bondage/ reading his invisible watch. He took a flying leap to grab the mike stand and fell on his ass. Classic.
During “I Wanna Be Your Dog” Iggy let me pet him, and he gave me his paw! Good doggy!
A girl handed him a bracelet saying, “This is a present from Africa” and Iggy said “this is a waste of time, let’s do ’96 Tears’. Then she rushes the stage and tries to hit him! What a riot!
Bowie is recording ‘China Girl’ for his next album, and Iggy is doing a movie called Ratboy! How fitting!
March 18 – Friday – Iggy @ Peppermint Lounge again. Well I guess you can’t expect 2 great shows from Iggy. He was so obnoxious. Didn’t even give the crowd a chance. We got ‘Louie Louie’ and it was downhill from there. He was forced to play these 2 gigs to make up for the bad ones last time in October. His roadies erected a 6 foot wooden cross for him which he carried onstage as a burden just to send a protest message to the management!
Nobody was around today, so I engulfed myself in The Idiot, Low, Heroes and Zombie Birdhouse. I got Bowie’s Let’s Dance album on Friday – Ugh! Just awful! He has decimated ‘China Girl’! He reduced it from something sublime to a stupid pop song!!!
Five years ago on this day in 1977 I saw Iggy live at the Palladium on The Idiot tour with Bowie on keyboards. So great! Blondie was the opening act! I love Blondie!!
March 26, 1983 – Iggy at Brooklyn Zoo He was great – 3 encores! His black hair dye ran all over his face when he was sweating!
May 25, 1983 – Roxy Music @ Radio City
Bryan was on Live At Five. The show was good but not great. Bryan Ferry is so ultra-suave that it’s sometimes funny! And he can’t dance! I couldn’t handle ‘Jealous Guy’. It’s still too sad.
June 26 – Sunday – Sparks @ Meadowlands NJ
We had 2nd row center. They were super fun as always, but only did about 10 songs since they were opening for Rick Springfield. After Sparks ended, we gave our 2ndrow tickets to 2 kids in the WORST seats at the back of the venue! It was nice playing God!
July 17 – Sat. – Bowie at Hartford Civic (CT) – Serious Moonlight Tour
Bowie looked awful – blonde hair and tan – UGH. The show was super-commercial and long and I was bored.
July 18 – Sun. 2nd – Bowie in CT
Same show. Jackie was at my house waiting for me when I got home from Bowie. We raced to see Sparks at Jones Beach. There was an ocean in front of the stage with a moat. We were so far away even though we had 3rd row! ‘Angst in My Pants’ was great!
Monday, July 25 – Bowie 3 nights at Madison Square Garden
Front row seats, but Bowie was boring – the best part of every show was ‘White Light White Heat.’
August, 1983
Klaus Nomi died last week. Devastating. I had been wondering about him lately. They said he had AIDS, How awful. I’d been wondering about him and had a feeling something was wrong. Then someone said in the Village Voice it said, “In memory of Klaus Nomi from his friends”. My heart sunk.
Read more of my concert diaries here:
https://madelinex.com/category/concert-diaries/
1983
January 9 – John Cale @ Bottom Line
Feb. – Tina Turner @ The Ritz (Sat near Bowie)
Feb. 17 – Mink Deville
February 25 – Lou Reed – The Bottom Line, NYC – 2 shows
February 26 – Lou Reed – The Bottom Line, NYC – 2 shows
February 28 – Lou Reed – The Bottom Line, NYC – 2 shows Eno, Adam Ant & Andy Warhol in audience!
March 1 Lou Reed – The Bottom Line, NYC – 2 shows
March 17 Iggy @ Peppermint Lounge
March 18 Lou Reed @ Studio 54
March 26 Iggy @ Brooklyn Zoo
April 3 David Johansen My Father’s Place
April 30 (26?) Psychedelic Furs, Hofstra, NY
May 25 Roxy Music – Radio City, NY
May 26 Roxy Music – Radio City, NY
May 28 Roxy Music – Tower Theatre, PA
June 26 Sparks/Rick Springfield – Meadowlands
Angst In My Pants Tour 1983 July 15
Bowie – Hartford Civic Center, CT Serious Moonlight Tour
July 16 Bowie – Hartford Civic Center, CT
July 17 Sparks/Rick Springfield – Meadowlands
July 25, 26, 27 – Sparks – Angst In My Pants Tour
August – Bowie – Madison Square Garden, NYC – front row
August – Ellen Foley @ Bottom Line (sat with Ian Hunter)
September 29 Marianne Faithfull – The Ritz
Amazing gigs!
Awesome stuff. ! Enjoyed very much. Thank you.
Glad you liked it! Those were the days!!
I was at the Psychedelic Furs concert at Hofstra too!
Excellent stuff, heart-rending in a way – because I don’t like to get misty over times I never even knew but there again, what an embarassment of riches. I listen to a lot of Iggy live bootlegs and ’83 is a vintage year in my distant opinion. It’s kind of like I’m on a space voyage, picking up remnants of a long lost culture on my scanner. Hey, there is good music at all times, yadda yadda, you sometimes just have to look for it, but no one can deny they didn’t put up fences, ever narrowing corners we’re painted into, suddenly you find yourself an island and wonder if there is even anybody else. I see Live Aid as a terrible bell tolling for the end of Rock N Roll. 1986 makes me want to puke. Things like Chris Stein’s Animal records, with Iggy’s wonderful Zombie Birdhouse, and swell stuff by Jeff Lee is a paliative that brings me back to a semblence of calm. I want to tell them it was not all in vain. And of course, your commitment and spirit, and your marvellous articles and stories are a lighthouse in the fog. We can take a challenge. I wonder why Iggy didn’t do Ratboy, after all?
I completely agree! Even about Ratboy! I always wonder what happened with that!!!
P.S. Sorry to drop a plug, but it’d be remiss if I didn’t, I promised ’em … If you’re interested, my friends who run the Louder Than Words festival are doing it online this year, and have some groovy events such as a conversation with Dennis Dunaway scheduled – Don Powell as well, plus loads more great stuff – it’s on 7-8 Novemeber there’s info at louderthanwordsfest.com and you can buy tickets there too. Commercial ends. Thanks!