My memory takes me back to my first concert where I couldn’t go backstage. No amount of stretching reality could get me backstage for there was no backstage, just a motorcade letting the Artists Peter and Gordon walk between armed guards escorting them to the stage. Girls screaming, crying while Peter and Gordon, guitars over their shoulder, stepped on stage in the middle of The War Memorial which often doubled as a sports arena. They began to sing. “World without Love” I only remember the beginning words;
“Please lock me away
And don’t allow the day
Here inside where I hide
With my loneliness
I don’t care what they say I won’t stay
in a world without love.”
Written by Lennon-McCarthy
This song gave me the attention I had longed for. A thought of a world of loving. It was the beginning of a free spirited life for me.The question I have now is how I hid being a shy young woman only wanting to live in my fantasies, dreaming of a life that opened doors to Rock and Roll and loving the world enough to make changes in how I was to become freer. It became a theme for myself and my generation. Loving everything that came to my experiences followed. After the show I went back up to my radio station where I hung out with excitement. While I was there, Jessica Savage, then called the “Honey Bee”, walked into the station as she was the first female disc jockey as I went up to the station in visible disappointment and one of my radio announcers, who I had adopted, told me when Peter and Gordon would be at the airport the next day. Off I went the next morning to the airport with two of my girlfriends. At that time no one was protecting the teen idols from teenage girls. We went to the airport and P&G were hanging at the bar. Gordon was at the end of the bar with a drink in his hand, openingly welcoming young girls. Interestingly, Peter was sitting at the other end of the bar and I remember him in his solitude. He seemed shy; he was not like Gordon. Peter sat quietly with his red hair and dark horn rimmed glasses. We chatted to Gordon and he was brazen with charming comments. In England they would call him “Cheeky.” He definitely was bold, brash and a bit rude to me. I got my photo taken with him. Now the photo is long gone but not my memory. As he stood with me for my photo, he talked into my cheek and whispered “ I bet you're a virgin.” Well, shocked as I was, I still hold on to the memory of asking me. ”How did he know?”
So here I was decades later watching Peter Asher reliving his past in a Visual and Musical Autobiographical tour. The fun came back to me. Peter was now at a bar where tribute bands are often saluted. I stood in line while others asked for autographs and in my still brazen self I got up to Peter to tell my story. We were both much older and I wanted him to hear me tell him about Gordon. After we talked about Gordon, he said if I had 20 minute alone with Gordon I wouldn’t have been a virgin. There he was with a drink in hand when Peter asked “Well are you a virgin now!” I laughed as he told me of how Gordon was gone and he was the one alive with successes. His now cheeky self after questioning my virginity, I told him I was not a virgin. “You slut,” he said. Now thinking about myself as a Good Girl, he shocked me. Not much shock but more amusement. He then asked the bartender for another drink.
