Remembering Karen

or

The Summer Gig Season

Ah, the summer concert season! The long, lazy days of sitting in the sun, having a smoke and a beer, finding a good spot and waiting for the main event.

6th Year School Sport's Day

 My first major gig was in the RDS in 1988, age 15 - Hothouse Flowers.  I remember the ticket price was an exorbitant £12.50 and part of me couldn't believe that my mother not only let me go, but funded it as well!  I went with my friend Karen Bearpark (RIP) and her little brother Timmy and we took turns sitting on each others' shoulders to get a better view.

Deacon Blue, Tracy Chapman,  Hothouse Flowers - we knew all the words of all the songs.  It was an awakening, a first tentative step into independence, debauchery and adulthood.  Tracy Chapman was the biggest disappointment of that day.  She's just not that great live although her songs were great you've got a fast car...  During her set, most people were distracted by the human pyramids spontaneously appearing throughtout the crowds.

You never see that at concerts anymore.  On Tuesday night at the fab Bruce Springsteen concert (first time I've seen him - great night!) there were no pyramids, no sitting on shoulders, apart from the adorable 6-year-old on her father's shoulders which the Boss plucked from the crowd.  Maybe it's the health and safety culture we now live in, ruining our fun, or maybe the crowd was older than the Liam Ó Maonlaí fans of '88 and more worried about the ageing, deteriorating backs.

One thing that hasn't changed is that you always meet people you know at events.  On Tuesday I was standing beside a guy who was in UCD with me and who I haven't seen since graduating in '94.  In 1988, our small threesome soon swelled into a gang of about 20 as we bumped into neighbours, gaeltacht room-mates, friends of friends.

In my memories, these events are always sunny.  I know it lashed rain on Tuesday after the gig - my clothes were still soaked on Wednesday when I finally dragged myself out of bed - and I know it rained at the Iron Maiden/Marilyn Manson gig in the same venue in 2005 because we wondered if the t-shirt stand sold raincoats and umbrellas and then laughed at how old, uncool and non metal-head we'd become.   Yet somehow you remember the sun, the good times, the music and all the gigs merge into one conglomerate of happiness.

Last day at school

But I'll never forget that first gig in the RDS.  The excitement beforehand, the sun, the music, the friends and most of all Karen.  She was so kind, so generous, so trusting.  While easily embarrassed, she was honest and never worried about making a fool of herself.  Not that she was a fool, far from it, she was just free of the posturing most teenages adopt.  She was so much more than she realised.  When she got into Physio in UCD she was amazed that she'd got enough points for it, while the rest of us were delighted for her but not surprised.  We shared the cost of a locker in our 1st year in UCD while she was still based in Belfield but then we slowly drifted apart as I drifted apart from all my MacDara's friends.

The that 'phone call from Brian McMahon years later while I was at work.  Karen was dead, the funeral the next day, St Jude's Church.  I'm embarrased to say I don't even know when it was.  It was too much to take in.  I know it was sometime between 1998 and 2000 because I remember the leather jacket, the jeans the t-shirt, the docs I wore that day and I remember having my Starlet and for some reason I'm fairly sure Brian was driving a Mitsubishi Colt.  Strange the things that you remember and also the things that elude you.

But, it's summer concert season again and time for long, lazy days sitting in the sun with a smoke and a beer.  And while I bop around, no longer knowing all the words but singing along all the same, a part of me remembers that first major gig, the beautiful, kind, lovable friend I once had and the innocent, tortured, but most of all fun, days of my teenage years.

Karen at the debs