my golden ticket

My golden ticket

My What’s the Story? post this week is all about a golden ticket.  We went to SEA LIFE in Birmingham last weekend, and we drove past the Villa Park football stadium, and I was taken back 30 years (eeek!  how can it be 30, flipping years!!) …..

my golden ticket - Duran Duran concert ticket

I was, and am, a huge Duran Duran fan, since their earliest days.  When I was at school I also always looked forward to listening to Peter Powell on Radio One.  It was 1983, I had just turned 15 and there was going to be a big announcement on Peter Powell’s radio show about Duran Duran.  I was there, listening on my radio, waiting ….. what would the news be? Well, it was announced that Duran Duran would be playing at Villa Park on 23rd July.  The tickets would cost £8.50 and the event would raise money for the MENCAP charity.

How excited was I!!  Now I had a number of problems to overcome:

a) how to get my very strict parents to let me go to a concert
b) how to pay for it
c) how to get there

Because I was going, nothing was going to stop me. NOTHING!  So, this next morning I get together with my friends K and S (who were cousins) – we all wanted to go, as did another friend.  Ok, so how?  Well somehow K persuaded her Dad to drive us, now all I had to do was persuade my parents to let me go and pay for my ticket too.

I can’t actually remember how I achieved the impossible.  Somehow my parents were persuaded to part with some money and let me go with my friend, her Dad and our other friends.

I remember the chatter in the people carrier, 4 very excited teenage girls, all going to their first concert.  One Dad probably wondering what an earth he’d agreed to! We were all donned in trilby hats and jackets with rather immense shoulder pads – we thought we were it – we probably weren’t!

We got so close to the stage it was great.  My friend K and I lost her Dad and the others, but we were there, at the FRONT.  We were happy.  Now I look back and wonder how much her Dad must have panicked – he’d lost his daughter and one of the girls he was supposed to be looking after.  Then I didn’t care – we were free!

The show was compared by Peter Powell, I can’t remember the first act at all now, Robert Palmer was excellent – Johnny and Mary is one of my favourite songs.  He was brilliant long before Addicted to Love.  Then they were on.  Duran Duran.  It was an amazing evening.  Something I will treasure forever.  My golden ticket moment.

I’ve got some great photos of the concert, but they’re all up in the loft these days, and I don’t do ladders!  Also not sure I want anyone to see just how awful I looked in a trilby hat.

Happy days, happy memories, brilliant band.  Still haven’t forgiven John Taylor for not marrying me, but you can’t have everything.

31 thoughts on “My golden ticket

  1. Ha! I LOVED John Taylor too, and have only just forgiven him for not marrying me 🙂

    I saw them that December at Leeds Queens Hall, on the Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour – when I screamed their names in order (but John’s the loudest) – it was amazing that night. My dad bought me a bootleg silk scarf afterwards, aahh they don’t do silk scarves these days. Even though it wasn’t silk and was polyester. Sighhh!

    Dig out the photos!!! I didn’t start taking pics from gigs until around 1985 (I think) so the concerts before then are stuck in my head instead.

      1. Ha! Well I really should start the linky I’ve been promising to (for most of the year, I move slowly) – a ‘show your ephemera’ kind of thing – I was going to start with classics from my badge collection as I have some great ones in there! Alas, the silk scarf is no more. I think the tassles fall off.

        My husband was amazed I’d heard of Australian Crawl and seen them live, I think I impressed him, even though it was only as they supported DD 😉

        1. God I can’t remember half of the support bands! Let me know when you do that linky – I have loads of concert tickets and a map postcard collection I’ve blogged about before!

  2. I remember so clearly my first Gig, I wasn’t allowed to see Nik Kershaw in London as my parents thought there would be too many druggies! Ok so they let me see RunDMC in Brighton! I can say there were some odd people there, but it was very memorable as the Beastie Boys were warm up and they were boo’ed off, they were not good! Bad Pop faze… Since then I have been hooked, but don’t have any planned at the moment…

  3. How exciting, you never forget your first gig do you! Unfortunately mine was Iron Maiden tagging along with my OH! Can’t believe it was only £8.50, how things have changed!

  4. Oh I do wish you had included a picture of you in the trilby and shoulder pads! x

  5. There definitely something very special about your first concert, dying to see the trilby pics, go on get up that ladder!! 😉

  6. What an awesome post Mary, was with you all the way through (I’m two years younger). Duran Duran must have been absolutely amazing in concert and Robert Plant for that matter. I bet you had the best time ever there! John Taylor clearly has no taste! Love this post, thank you so much for sharing with #whatsthestory

  7. How brilliant, such a great story! John Taylor was brought up a mere stones throw from where I live. I was more of a Spandau Ballet fan but I never got to see them, whereas I managed to see Duran Duran a few years ago. I want to see you in a trilby now! I used to dye my hair plum and sport the Miami Vice look….glad there aren’t many of those photo’s lying around.

    1. Oh god I used to use the Shaders and Toners Plum and Auburn wash in, wash out colours all the time. Then I discovered peroxide – oh dear. I was made for shoulder pads as I have no shoulders, tiny waist and big bum! They levelled me out!

  8. Love your story! The first concert does leave lasting memories… And yes, I would quite like to see you in that trilby hat! 😉 xx

  9. I loved dancing to Duran Duran! This post reminded me of going same year to David Bowie’s concert in Milton Keynes. Incredible!

    1. I remember being so jealous of one of my class mates, she went out with an older bloke (big scandal at the time) who lived in Brum and he took her to see David Bowie – would have loved that.

  10. What a great memory! In the 80’s I was crazy about Madonna but my Mum wouldn’t let me go to see her in concert. I was just about allowed to listen to her records, lol x

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