The first concert you ever went to...

If you live anywhere near The Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne or the Acer Arena in Sydney, you might have recently heard oh, just a few thousand screaming girls. Yes, Justin Bieber was in town. I saw news coverage of one girl convulsing in tears because she realised she would never have the chance to meet the Beebs in person.

Wow, surely we were never like that when we were tweens? Were we? Not that the term tweens was even invented back then. I do remember practically hyperventilating when Dieter Brummer from Home and Away visited our local shopping centre. But a singer whose hair-flicking alone was faint-worthy? It got us thinking about the first concert we ever went to.

For me it was Bobby Brown. It was 1992 and his single “Humpin’ Around” was almost as big as Kris Kross’s “Jump” and “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix A-lot… clearly I was listening to a lot of American Top 40 on the radio.

I went with a friend from Year 8, chaperoned by her mum and the man who was trying to woo her mum at the time. They turned up at my house in a limo, yes, a limo. Nothing as exciting as that had happened so far in my 12 years of existing. It got better, the said boyfriend who had paid for the limo had also bought us both concert packs, which included cds, t-shirts and b o b b y baseball caps. We thought he was a definite keeper as we sipped our coke-filled champagne flutes on the way to the Entertainment Centre in Sydney.

So there we were dancing in front of our chairs like tragic fans wearing Bobby Brown t-shirts and caps, singing the lyrics “ain’t nobody humpin’ around.” Which, of course really resonated with us at the time. I remember later going to bed, experiencing the new sensation of ringing ears thinking; that was the best night of my life.

What was your first concert experience like? Who did you see? Were you a raving fan?