Here’s another post wherein I take a moment to extol the merits of a place that is outside of the cozy confines of New York City. Imagine that!
I’ve written about my dealings with the Columbus, Ohio music scene of the mid-80’s a couple of times here (notably here and here). As I’d mentioned in those posts, as a high-falutin’ New Yorker, I wrongly assumed upon my arrival in Ohio in 1985 that the Buckeye state’s capital wouldn’t see a third as much activity on the live music front as my beloved hometown. I'd been exiled from coolsville into a podunk burg in a flyover state, after all.
Not only was I friggin' hugely wrong (Columbus was a MAJOR hub of music), but most of the shows I had the pleasure of attending in Columbus were actually superior to the shows I’d see in New York City by the very same bands. Why is that? Well, unlike the perpetually too-cool-for-school attitudes and industry pressure of New York City, folks in heartland cities like Columbus genuinely get really excited — and show it — when bands come to town. From a musician’s perspective, playing in a city like Columbus is probably a lot more rewarding and fun than playing for a bunch of folded-armed hipsters and record label execs in Manhattan.
I’ve sort of already spoken at length about both since-razed Stache’s (which catered largely to downmarket hardcore bands) and the Newport Music Hall, a bigger room that played host to comparatively loftier fare. At the Newport, I was lucky enough to catch a slew of diverse bands, including X, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, the Red Hot Chili Peppers (circa Freaky Styley, with Hillel Slovak on guitar), the Butthole Surfers, Husker Du, Suicidal Tendencies, Living Colour, The Mission, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Skinny Puppy, Flesh for Lulu (whose lead singer, Nick Marsh, died today from cancer at age 53), Gene Love Jezebel and even 10,000 Maniacs (with a then-still-unknown Tracy Chapman opening). The Newport welcomed all stripes of music.
Arguably the most memorable and significant (well, to me) show I witnessed at the Newport, however, was the Replacements on their Don’t Tell A Soul tour in the early spring of 1989. Funny thing about The Replacements is that they were the band that was the common thread between my gaggle of college friends. Sure, I loved slovenly hardcore bands like Kraut and ridiculous goth cretins like The Nephilim while my friend Toomey loved the Grateful Dead and Peter Tosh and my friends Tim and Jay loved jangle-friendly college bands like the Feelies and R.E.M., but seemingly all of us were united by our love for the drunken blitz of The Replacements. As such, when they plowed into Columbus that March, we showed up in force.
Many will argue that the rot was setting in circa Don’t Tell a Soul. While certainly not my favorite album by the Replacements (by a loooooong shot), it did include “Anywhere’s Better Than Here,” which they played with zealous aplomb that night. Regardless, true to form, the band completely delivered a blistering set, much to our delight.
Two short months later, we would all graduate and leave the idyllic confines of college life behind us. The Replacements would crank out one more album, the unlistenably dreary All Shook Down. Life would never be the same again.
But on March 12, 1989 at the Newport, we were all there .... and all seemed right with the world.
This is that show.
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