Rap concerts in Gary were few and far between, though.. in suburban Merrillville and beyond, certain theaters like the Holiday Star would advertise mainstream pop and country acts-- Toto, Kansas, Mickey Gilley, Starship, Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle.. but forget about rap, really.. and the Jacksons never, I mean NEVER, came back to Gary for any kind of homecoming concert-- the closest they came was Chicago during the Victory tour, and that sold out in like 3 hours.. but like a good soldier, I kept my Mike Jax posters on the wall... "He'll come back someday.. Just you wait and see..." whoo-boy... well-- Jermaine did once do an impromptu visit to their old family house, which caused a minor stampede, but I digress... Whenever I got to hear about some show, I either didn't have the money, didn't have a ride (mom went through about 4 hooptie cars between 6th grade and 9th.. the last of which sat rusting in the driveway until well into my senior year when she finally sold it as is to someone..), or both..
The first music concert I was, well,
exposed to was in the summer of 1988, spending the summer vacation in Detroit..
My cousin Scott's church, which was United Methodist affiliated, was
participating in the UMC's "Youth 88" convention summit, on the
campus of Western Illinois university in Macomb Illinois-- it was mostly us
kids, but several adult chaperones were with us.. on the bus ride there, which
started at midnight, one girl threw up barely an hour into the ride.. several
hours later, we actually ended up bypassing the University by accident, going
across the Mississippi River into Iowa.. We stopped at a restaurant, it was
like 7 in the morning by now.. Half of us rushed a nearby Burger King and
started ordering Whoppers and orange juice.. at 7 in the morning. We finally
turned around and made it back to the University.. Staying on the campus.. Lots
of girls were there from all over the country; most of the other guys were
trying their best to flirt and hook up, but of course I was super-shy. I do
remember this one very pretty Filipina girl named Heaven (!), and she swore
she'd send her photo to me when I gave her my address.. Anyway, The dorms we
stayed in had this system where when you get on the elevator, you had to have a
key to get to a specific floor.. As teens this blew us away as being “weird”,
and each of us kids only got the key to our own floor.. we were going nuts
calling each other on phones-- "Press the elevator button on your floor!
I'm coming up!"..
Oh, i did mention there was a concert
here? Well, the first day consisted of different workshops of nice, but vaguely
boring interaction with each other, bible study and more.. but at the end of
the day, our first special guest arrived, as we had all gathered in the
university's basketball stadium.. All to witness the coming of..
LISA WHELCHEL AKA "BLAIR" FROM THE FACTS OF LIFE....
the show was still on the air then, and she was
still a "star" celebrity.. she proceeded to talk to us about her
career and her faith life... and the fact that she doesn't go see R rated
movies.. she even did a skit in character as Blair, and sang some Christian pop
records..
on the second night, the special guest was R&B
singer Deneice Williams; she mostly did gospel selections, and I remember the
group of kids I was with from our Detroit group were apparently the loudest
because she called us out in the middle of the show. And she took the request that our group was
chanting. Lol. Eventually she finally did her best known pop record, "Let's Hear it For the Boy" at the
end.
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