The Night We Opened For A Video
In 1982, I was running sound for a punk rock band called The Libido Boys when we landed one of the strangest gigs I can remember from those days. We opened for a video. Yes, you read that correctly. A video. To be more precise, we opened for a musician who had composed and performed all the music himself to accompany a series of videos. It might not sound particularly unusual today, but remember, this was 1982. MTV had premiered less than a year earlier, and the idea of watching music videos as entertainment was still relatively new. The gig was at Finks, a popular bar in Normal, Illinois, near Illinois State University. What I remember most about the place was its unusual performance space. The band played upstairs in a room that looked as though it might once have been an enclosed porch. There were windows everywhere, which made for an interesting setting for a rock show. I also remember a thunderstorm moving into the area during one of our appearances there. Whether it was that part...
