Selective Memory

The mind is a funny thing. It's hard to explain what triggers memories of events long past, while other seemingly more important things are quickly forgotten. For some reason, this date has stood out to me for years. Specifically, the date November 4, 1983. And it isn't anything that I did that day...actually, it's something I didn't do.

For this to make any sense, you need to understand my life at the time. We had moved to Kingston, NH, five months earlier. It was my junior year of high school and for the fourth time in three years, I had to acclimate myself to a new school. It didn't help that my dad decided to buy property on the very outskirts of town; it was a nice piece of land with access to a huge pond and a few acres of woods, but it wasn't exactly in a neighborhood. We were right on Route 125, a two-lane highway. I was 16, but didn't have my driver's license yet because I wasn't taking driver's ed until the following semester. And as a surly teen, I wanted little to do with my family, so I spent much of my time in my room listening to music.

I've documented this in the past, but I was primarily into metal in those days. And that fall, Black Sabbath had released a new album, Born Again, featuring former Deep Purple yowler Ian Gillan on lead vocals. I picked up the record and was really digging it. It was plagued by a pretty shitty mix, but on the whole, I still think it's a decent album. At any rate, the band played the Worcester Centrum on the night of November 4, 1983. I couldn't go because my parents still hadn't allowed me to attend any rock concerts yet (that happened the following summer), but my friends and I were buzzing about the show because a hot new band named Quiet Riot was the opening act. Sure enough, the show sold out and was recorded by Westwood One for a future radio broadcast, so it's been heavily bootlegged. I taped it off the radio at some point.

I was really bummed that I couldn't go to the show. As it turned out, the band's stage set was supposed to emulate Stonehenge, but the pieces were built too large to fit. In fact, it ended up inspiring a similar gag in the classic movie This is Spinal Tap.

I did end up picking up a tour shirt from a local record store that looked something like this. Quite hideous, actually. I couldn't wear it in front of my mom, who's pretty religious and would have freaked out. Couldn't really wear it to school, either, so I don't think I wore it much at all.

So even though I can't remember anything I actually did 26 years ago today, the date still stands out in my mind.

Here's the first single from Born Again, which I remember hearing on WBCN in between Culture Club and Clash songs back in the day: