I had just graduated from high school, and I felt like there was no stopping me. I had been working at Edward Fox Photography for over a year, and decided that a full-time job, rather than college, was the way to go. Work brings in income, and income supports sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. QED.

The Robert Plant concert was a very big event. It had sold out in a matter of minutes, but I had no worries since I was going to go to the show with Nick Palumbo, a friend of mine from high school. Nick Palumbo's dad was one of the two presidents of Palumbo Construction, which did practically ALL construction on the Illinois highway system. Needless to say, he had connections. So, once again, I was able to go to a sold-out concert for free, which was good because I could buy more drugs that way.

Nick actually came and picked me up at work that day. As it turned out, my boss and his dad knew each other. Evidently, the Palumbo family had come into the studio for portrait work quite a few times. As we were leaving, my boss saying to Nick, "Tell your mom and dad I said 'Hi'!" Then he grabbed me on the side, slipped me $20, and said to buy dinner for Nick and myself, with of course, the understanding that Nick understood dinner was on my boss.

I got dinner all right. . . the liquid kind. We went down the street to a liquor store that had a clerk who was into pills. I was sleeping with a girl whose brother worked at a family-owned pharmacy. He would steal all types of pills-Valiums, Percodans, Placadils, etc.-and give them to me, I'd sell them, and we'd split the cash. Needless to say, the liquor store clerk was one of my best customers, and he sure wasn't going to card me. Connections are good things to have.

So, we went skipping off to Rosemont with a case of Becks, bag of pretzels, and some weed. Nick had some big old late '70's Ford LTD with tinted windows. It was a huge car, but most of all, we could smoke a bong while driving and no one could even see in. It was pretty cool.

When we pulled up to the parking lot attendant to pay, smoke billowed out Nick's window, Cheech and Chong-style. We parked and began consuming Becks. I was developing a nice drinking habit at this time, working my way up to an alcoholic. By the time we arrived in the parking lot at 7:30, I had already had four; by 7:50 it was eight, which left me nice and buzzed as we went in. Nick and I weren't on the main floor, but we had really great mezzanine seats on stage right, maybe 40 yards away from the center of the stage.

This was Robert Plant's first solo tour. He had just released "The Principles of Moments," his follow-up to "Pictures at 11." He obviously had enough solo material to do a show with. At this time in his career, he was opposed to playing ANY Led-Zeppelin.

So as soon as we sat down, the lights grew dim, the stage lighting went on, and out came Robert Plant with his incredible backing band, which consisted of, at that time, Robbie Blunt on guitar, Paul Martinez on bass, Jezz Woodroffe on keyboards, and Phil Collins (yes, THAT Phil Collins!) on drums. They opened with "In the Mood" and proceeded through an incredible set of songs that included "Pledge Pin," "Slow Dancer," "Worse Than Detroit," "Other Arms," "Wreckless Love," "Thru With the Two Step," and "Big Log." The concert lasted about two hours in total. I was sober for none of it.

As we are leaving the arena and are in the parking lot I, ran into a candid wedding photographer from Edward Fox named Jay. Jay was a cool dude, but he had a PCP habit, so of course he wanted to smoke a "happy stick" with us. I wasn't into it, though, having once been chased home by my own shadow, which, as I then discovered, was magically transformed by PCP into a flesh-eating dinosaur. Needless to say, it hadn't beeen a pleasant experience. Nick, however, was all up for it, so the three of us went into the LTD and they passed the PCP peace pipe while I worked on the for Becks I had left. After about ten minutes, we bid farewell to Jay and Nick and I headed home from the show.

One should never smoke PCP and drive. As we were on Manheim heading south, Nick all of a sudden veered to the right and started plowing into construction horses with the flashing yellow lights. He was laughing his ass off. I was scared shitless that one of these things was going to come flying through the windshield, impaling my skinny white ass to the seat-a far cry from the way I wanted to go out of the world, which was in bed with Farrah Fawcett. I screamed at Nick, "What the fuck are you doing?" He tolds me to relax because "they belong to my dad's company."

Great. Nick had decided to work out his Oedipal complex with a two-ton piece of steel. Thank God I made it home in one piece that night.

We weren't the only ones who had trouble getting home that evening. I saw Jay at work a couple of days later. He had had some problems finding his car that night after smoking that "happy stick" and only found it hours later. . . because it was the last car left in the lot.

Kids, just say no to PCP. It's a bad trip.

Next up. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, February 17, 1984, in the Embassy Ballroom, Chicago, Ill.

Until then…ROCK ON !

Keep on Rockin' in teh Free World. Send us e-mail at editor@corporatemofo.com
(By the way, yes, we're spelling it "teh" intentionally)