Coulda Been a Groupie

Long ago--31 years ago!--I was a big fan of the rock band The Cars. They had a sort of pre-punk sound with a lot of synthesizers. Their hair was styled in a shag and their stage presence was very sharp and stylized, with a black, white and red theme--oh, and green potted palms. The ugliest one, Ric Ocasek, married a gorgeous foreign model and I recently read they are still together. In 1978 The Cars came to St. Louis and performed at the Kiel Opera House. Being a big fan I stood in line for hours to get good seats--maybe 8th row. I asked my friend Missy to go with me and although she was a very conservative young woman, she agreed to come along. Maybe I bribed her. It's funny, I remember what I wore: a white cowl-neck sweater, tan cordoroy jeans and cowboy boots. I was thin then because I didn't eat, I smoked menthol cigarettes instead. The show was fantastic and as Missy and I were leaving a guy in a t-shirt shoved something in my hand and said, "This is from the bass player"--the late, handsome Benjamin Orr. It was an orange fabric square that said BACKSTAGE PASS, plus the name of the band and the date. A backstage pass! From Orr! Oh my goodness. Oh dear. What's a girl to do? I showed Missy and her immediate reaction was, "That's a fake!" followed by, "You're NOT going, are you?" For about 10 seconds I considered telling her, "YES I'm going! Wouldn't you?!" But I knew I never would. There were just so many reasons not to--like it could be dangerous (drugs, alcohol, etc.), I don't know these people, they don't know me, I'm not prepared, I'm scared. The only reason to actually go backstage was to say I did it. So we went home. I felt a little mad at Missy for a while for being such a sourpuss about the whole thing. I tossed the pass on my coffee table and glanced at it occasionally. A few weeks later a friend came by, a DJ at a local rock station. He saw the pass on my table and excitedly asked, "Where did you get that?" I told him someone handed it to me after the Cars show and said it was from the bass player. "Did you go backstage?" he asked. No, I said. It's a fake. "That's no fake," he said. "Don't you know those musicians can play their songs in their sleep. They're checking out girls in the front rows of the audience! Obviously Orr thought you were cute." Then he added, "But he probably sent the same invitation to a lot of other girls too, to make sure someone showed up."