100 Concerts / Concert #12

Headline Act: The Cars

Touring Album: Door To Door

Opening Act: none

Date: October 22, 1987

Venue: O'Connell Center, Gainesville, FL
Ticket price:  COMPLIMENTARY

Late in my sophomore year at the University of Florida, I was killing time between classes one day with my friend and fraternity brother, Mark. We stumbled into the offices of the on-campus radio stations and through pure luck discovered that we could audition to become on-air talent. We read a few lines into a tape recorder and within days were each offered a chance to work as DJ's. Mark worked for a time spinning symphonies on Classic 89 while I got a gig with the rock station, Rock 104. Mark had to learn about Shostakovich, I had Aerosmith.. He got Rachmaninoff, I got Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The O'Dome (O'Connell Center), home of Gator basketball

This isn't me, but a typical '80s radio station control room.

To complete my training, I was given a one-hour audition late one weeknight. The first time the microphone went hot and the "ON AIR" sign was illuminated, I could hardly speak. Have you ever heard someone hyperventilate on the radio? Fortunately, my nerves settled quickly; I was soon awarded (or sentenced to) the overnight shift for the summer. I worked from 2 to 6 am several nights per week, with some occasional weekend shifts thrown in. It was exhausting and lonely but exciting as hell.

Razor blades and reel-to-reel editing

Compared to today's technology, it  now seems as if we were carving tablets like Fred Flintstone. We recorded commercials and news updates on reel-to-reel machines, marked the audio tape with a white grease pencil, cut it with a razor blade and completed the edit with special adhesive. If you messed up there was no "Undo" button. All our commercials (and some of the older songs) aired via carts, similar to 8-track cassettes. It was at this time that radio started to go digital. Thousands of LPs in the control room were starting to give way to the brand new Compact Disc format.

Rock 104 was not a typical low-powered college radio station. It was a big, booming 100,000-watt monster that broadcast all over North Central Florida. I honed my skills that summer and was rewarded with a more humane shift for the Fall semester, Monday through Friday nights, 11 pm to 2 am. This was a fantastic step for me but proved to be socially challenging. I had to leave parties early or completely miss social get-togethers to make my radio shift on-time and (mostly) sober. As a junior living in a fraternity house, this was a bummer at times. I wasn't a celebrity, I wasn't getting rich, and I wasn't getting lucky with the ladies. But in October I received one of the few perks of the job, free concert tickets. If you look carefully at the ticket stub shown above,  the wonderful word "COMPLIMENTARY" is stamped across the middle. Since The Cars were going to perform in the O'Connell Center on campus, I didn't have to go far for the concert. The building was home to UF's basketball, gymnastics, and swimming teams among others. Later, it was also the site of my college graduation in May 1989.

Heartbeat, it's a lovebeat.

Paulina & Ric = Beauty & The Beast?

The Cars were one of the New Wave bands of the late '70s who had hit the big time commercially, along with Blondie and Talking Heads. They had gone from respected FM radio staples ("My Best Friend's Girl", "Just What I Needed", "Let's Go") to megastars with a platinum-selling album, "Heartbeat City". The album spawned a pair of #1 singles,"You Might Think" and "Magic". They also had a big hit with "Drive", its video featured supermodel Paulina Porzikova. Lead singer Ric Ocasek's ensuing romance and long-term marriage to Paulina is still a prime example of how an awkward gangly guy can get one of the most beautiful women in the world. Of course he never would have had a chance if he weren't a rock star. Still, he gave us all hope!

I landed a date for the show, a rare occurrence for me in college. Debbie was one of the coolest girls I knew. We had no romantic past but I thought maybe a concert could change that. I mean, what college girl could resist a rock concert with a radio DJ who scored comp tickets?

The Country Bear Jamboree. Now that was a band!

As for The Cars, it was hard to tell if we were watching a live performance by a successful rock band or a Disney Audio-Animatronic show. I've seen more stage presence and personality from the Country Bear Jamboree than from Ric Ocasek and the band that night.  Without question, this was one of the least interesting shows I've ever seen. The O'Dome (as the building was nicknamed) wasn't filled anywhere close to capacity that night. One of the biggest groups in the world just three years earlier had run out of  gas. A year later, they broke up. In 2000, original member Benjamin Orr passed away. The Cars remained in the garage for more than a decade before the surviving members reunited and released a new album in 2011.

The Cars created no sparks on the stage and it was the same for our date. When the forgettable show ended, Debbie and I left quickly. She dropped me off just down the road at the radio station for my shift. I had to go spin some records for the good people of North Central Florida. I had a job to do. I was a DJ, damn it. Within a year, Debbie began dating Mike, my friend, fraternity brother and former roommate. Now, more than 20 years later, they have been married for a long time and have three kids. 

 

Sometimes when you get free concert tickets, you get exactly what you pay for. On this night, The Cars were nothing but lemons.

Unofficial setlist: Tonight She Comes, Touch And Go, Double Trouble, My Best Friend's Girl, Everything You Say, Since You're Gone, Fine Line, Let's Go, Strap Me In, Candy-O, Moving In Stereo, The Dangerous Type, Drive, You Are The Girl, Good Times Roll, You Might Think (Encore) Hello Again, Just What I Needed, Magic