The Guns N Roses Concert
Without Prejudice
The Guns n Roses Concert Melbourne
We went for Lauren, her love of AXL ROSE, our driving force, it was the 2nd Christmas without her. Deb and I and Alena and Yvette and Kerry Froud, the heat was incredible, we had brought water in bottles but couldn't take it in. We wore simple cotton beach dresses, no jackets, it was way too hot, thongs on our feet, (Big Mistake-Huge!) and we waited for hours in the sun before we were finally through the water check ???
And there were people everywhere, thousands of us, packed in like sardines at Calder, Deb and I sat on the tiniest bit of ground imaginable on a 45 degree slope our feet slipping from underneath us and we baked and baked and daredn't move for fear of losing our scrap of dirt.
We took it in turns to go to the loo with its long lines and pungent stench, and tried to queue for water at $5- a plastic cup full. it was agony, sheer agony, hot, boiling getting burned to a crisp and when I got to the stage I couldn't do it any more going mad with the heat, the noise a black cloud appeared in the sky.
One little cloud and suddenly it was massive and blessed rain fell from the sky, saturating, tropical intense rain. And we sat their Deb and I soaked to the skin, my undies were wet, everything was wet, and we had to grip on to our dirt a little harder with our toes now, to stop us sliding down the hill.
It was mad crazy the sun returned just as hot as before and we steamed, I swear to God, my clothes were steaming and the dark was approaching and then up through the darkened stage came AXL with his white piano and white Lycra bike shorts, red Bandanna and the place erupted to the strains of Welcome to the Jungle.
And the crowd was insane, people started sliding down the mud hills, people were dancing and smiling and singing and it was the best feeling, apart from my undies, which were feeling like starched cardboard.
And we danced scraps forgotten we danced barefoot like tribal monsters in the sodden mud and attached ourselves to others. and Alena and Kerry danced past us and some of the boys were sliding on bits of cardboard down the mud, skating down like demented skater boys and we were in love with the music and the night and each other
And then came the lead riff to "Sweet Child Of Mine" and we danced Deb and Alena and Yvette and the rest of us like she was with us, still, and we felt her Joy left in us and we knew we had moved on just the tiniest bit, that we could laugh and dance and sing in Celebration of her, not just feel bereft.
And it went on for 2 hours and it took us 3 hours to get out of the carpark and get home To Keysborough and fell asleep on Deb's heated Water bed, starfish and face down, wrecked.
And later that year my Dad took me to see The Phantom of The Opera, we sat in the gods and peered down on the tiny stage. Dad was in ecstasy and kept nudging me and saying,
"Oh, Janette, listen to this bit or that bit" He made sure I saw it. felt it, like he did. His rapture, his muse, his Music.
And then we walked to a Cathedral in town, and we went in. Midnight Mass, Christmas Eve. The church was hushed as we walked in, just music quietly played somewhere. And Dad and I sang the hymns and said the responses and later we walked through the cold night air, talking and holding hands, swinging them, just like when I was a little girl. And sang snatches of the music and felt good.
Heading back to home and the following year he died.
And I can't remember one word of our conversation but I remember the feeling, "Happy" and protected and understood and accepted and loved. Looking up at the stars in the cold night, the bruised purple lit up by tiny pin pricks.
When I was born, the night he went with my siblings to see me at Eastern Hospital, Leith, Jackie told me, he pointed up at the stars, winking in the dark Edinburgh night and said.
"see that star, the one that is brighter than the rest. And they all looked up, he said,
"Well that's Janette's star"
Love xoxo
