Vie’s Verses – What Kind Of Swag You Got?
The first concert I ever attended was AC/DC with Love/Hate at the Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey. While I was excited for numerous reasons, the one thing I remember most is how desperately I wanted a T-shirt from that show. A concert T-shirt was the epitome of cool when I was 17. It was something that could only be obtained from actually being at the concert (this was before the days of e-bay and reselling concert merchandise online) and it meant that you were one of the few who got a ticket. Having never owned a concert shirt (since I had never been to a concert before) this was a huge quest. I had to have a T-shirt.
Once we entered the arena I made a beeline for the merchandise booth. I was getting a T-shirt that I would proudly wear around school the next day to show how “cool” I was. That’s right, I saw AC/DC last night. What did you do, watch Growing Pains? Sucker!
Full of giddy excitement and with the look of a serial killer in my eye, I proudly stepped up the merchandise booth to see which shirt was going to look coolest on me. Then I saw the prices. My jaw dropped. $20 for a T-shirt? What the hell was going on? Who paid $20 for a T-shirt? Looking back now, it seems pretty cheap, but back in the day, $20 was a lot of money, especially when one gained the majority of their income from part time work at Roy Rogers fast food restaurant. $20 could buy a lot of things. Dejectedly, I shook my head and walked away from the booth. I would not be getting my shirt and would have no proof that I was at one of the coolest concerts of the year.
After the concert (which was, of course, amazing) I saw a guy in the parking lot selling T-shirts. “Shirts! Who needs shirts? Ten dollars for shirts!” $10? That was half of what they were inside. My logical, naïve, teenaged brain figured that they must be trying to get rid of the shirts now that the show was over. Buying shirts at the end of the show must have made them cheaper if there were any left. I could afford $10! I was getting my shirt after all! What I obviously failed to realize at the time was that I had just purchased an illegal concert T-shirt. Bootlegged swag. Non-official merchandise. It didn’t matter to me, because I was going to be rocking my high school AC/DC style the next morning.
Since my first concert oh so many years ago, I have attended copious amounts of shows all over America. For a while, a T-shirt was must have for merchandise memorabilia. Parking lot bootlegged, or when I could afford it, the official shirt from a merchandise booth. Then in the late 90s I got into collecting sweatshirts and baseball caps from concerts. Now I alternate between sweatshirts and beanie caps. And for some reason, concert swag, or merchandise, is still as cool and important to me as it was when I was in high school.
And it’s not just T-shirts or outerwear. I like all the cool things you can get at a concert. Tour books, shot glasses, bandannas (dew rags), all of it is cool. I still have every ticket stub from every concert I attended, kept in a nice photo album, to help remind me of all the great shows I have attended. My prize possession is a pair of 3D glasses from the Kiss Psycho Circus tour. They are 14 years old and still look as new as the day they were handed to me. And while it really is just stuff it is still cool and important to me. I still get a chill when wearing my Iron Maiden beanie and reflect for a moment on how happy I was to buy it. I still occasionally flip through the 1997 Kiss tour book and smile.
Why do we love swag so much? Why is it that even in our 30s and 40s we want to own a shirt, cap, poster, piece of the concert we just attended? Why do I still feel like a school boy when I proudly wear my Pop Evil beanie in public? I guess it doesn’t matter how old we get, the thrill of our favorite bands, that we paid hard earned cash to see in concert AND wear their gear, makes us feel alive and youthful. At least, that’s how it feels to me. What about you? What merchandise do you collect? What’s your favorite concert possession? What kind of swag you got?
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Hey there…well, this was sort of surreal. My girlfriend and I were driving from Toronto to Montreal and stopped in Picton along the way. Carl Dixon from Coney Hatch was playing an acoustic show at a resort there. We took in his show and chatted and had drinks with him afterwards. He arranged for us to get a room to stay over at the “Carl Dixon rate.”
Being a little hungover the next morning, we headed to breakfast. There we see Carl. He invites us to have breakfast with him. The decor was definitely geared to the older crowd and it was really quiet in this grand old house. Hearing Carl’s stories of playing with April Wine, and The Guess Who over bacon and eggs with a splitting headache and the blue rinse set having tea in the background was just one of those odd things in life.
Kent, that VH story is heartbreaking, but not surprising. Now a days, with camera phones, photos are easy to get away with, but back in the day, no way!!!
Something tells me that I would love to hear your stories about brushes with RnR greatness…
I totally relate to this. My first concert was Kiss in 79 in Toronto. Got the tour book and brought a pen and paper to write down the song titles. Still have it. Have all my ticket stubs since then. Not sure what it is, but I always felt I had to have every momento possilbe. Still do. These days, I’m the guy at the stage after the band has just left to ask a roadie for the setlist and look around for discarded pics. Also got into recording the shows I saw on cassette as a teen. Still have plenty of rare (but sorta poor quality tapes). And no, I’ve never made them available. Still have 1,000’s of photos too. I also save bits of confetti from a lot of the shows…don’t tell anyone! I miss my Triumph 80 shirt, Pat Benatar 81 shirt, Aerosmith 82 shirt as they just didn’t last. While I’ve got plenty of favourite things collected from shows, the one thing I miss the most that would’ve been the most prized, were photos from Van Halen 81 front row pics I took. VH 81 front row was maybe the highlight of my life as a young kid from Oshawa. Brought along a telephoto lens and was able to focus in on just Dave’s nose, I was so close. Then came the tap on the shoulder of a security guard who told me to follow him. I had to give him the camera while he ripped open the film and threw it out. I was devastated. Still have Juliette Lewis’ towel she used to wipe her face around here somewhere, and rose petals David Johansen handed to me at the end of a NY Dolls show.
I have a few funny brushes with RnR greatness stories….perhaps a column for another time?