Sing Blue Silver

(Originally published 10/4/2012. Edited and revised 4/29/2022)

I’ve been listening to a lot of Duran Duran lately.

They were my first band crush when I was a kid; I had my walls covered with them.

I was a total Duran Duran fanatic. My best friend and I had every lyric on every album memorized. We would hold our own lip-sync and air guitar concerts in her bedroom whenever I would stay the night.

My Duran Duran record collection was something I treasured. My love and appreciation, and yes I must admit, obsession with music, started with this band. To this day, Duran Duran is still one of my all-time favorite bands.

During the summer of 1987, my best friend and I got tickets to go see Duran Duran in concert for the Strange Behavior Tour.

I was so excited as I had never seen them live before.

I remember thinking how my life would be complete because I was finally going to see Duran Duran live – I could die knowing I had seen my favorite band live in concert. Yes, I was a bit morbid with my thoughts, even back then.

Mom-ster knew how much I was looking forward to this concert – frankly, I wouldn’t shut up about it. Whenever I was home, sounds of Duran Duran would come blaring from my room; sometimes I had to resort to headphones so I didn’t have to hear Mom-ster yell at me for my “noise.”

The day of the concert arrived – I was so incredibly excited! I already had my outfit picked out for the concert.

I felt like Cinderella getting to go to the ball. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how true that analogy was…

In this version of Cinderella, Mom-ster was the wicked stepmother and she wasn’t going to let me go see Duran Duran.

Dad was working that day and Mom-ster gave me a list of things I had to do before I could leave the yard; it was a long and exhaustive list. She knew there was no way I could get these things done before my friend and her mom left for the concert. I diligently went about doing the list and crossing things off as I did them.

I was hoping in the back of my mind that Mom-ster would see the effort I was putting forth and let me go at the last minute. I worked my tail off that day, and as the clock ticked closer and closer to the time to go, there was no word from her to say I could leave.

About half an hour after my friend left for the concert, Mom-ster finally yelled out the window to me saying I could go. She knew my friend had already left. I was left, alone, with a ticket that was now worthless.

The only thing Mom-ster had to say to me was, “oh well, maybe next time.” She disappeared into the house and got on the phone, most likely to call her sister and brag about how she crushed yet another one of my dreams.

I stormed off and disappeared from the house that day. I spent a few hours in the woods just sitting and crying, then brushed off the pain and disappointment and made my way to another friend’s house for the night.

The evil Mom-ster won once again.

I learned from that point on to never tell her when I had concert tickets.

I still have yet to see Duran Duran in concert. Who knows, maybe when they go on tour again I will get to see them and finally fulfill that dream. I think it would be fun to flashback to the days of my youth and be a screaming, dancing, and singing “Duranie” again, if only for a few hours.