Fuck Cancer
Apr. 23rd, 2013 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexChrissy Amphlett, lead singer of the DiVinyls, has died of cancer at age 53. Because she also suffered from MS she was unable to take most of the typical radiation and chemo treatments used to fight cancers.
I was not a DiVinyls fan originally, nor when they reunited. Most people nowadays know them because of their later (1991) hit "I Touch Myself" but originally they were much more punk rock and that's when I saw them.
I saw them in 1983, as the opening band in a four-band show. I wasn't particularly interested in their set and would have come later to the show to hear the Psychedelic Furs, who were the second act. But I was being what we called "bus driver" (surprisingly the definition isn't in Urban Dictionary) for a couple of my friends and they wanted to go. So I went with them to make sure everything was OK.
Did I mention the DiVinyls were pretty punk back then? Yeah, the spikes and safety pins and thrashing. Amphlett spent much of the set screaming into the mic. At one point she actually leaped onto the back of the guitarist who clearly was used to this and just tossed her off with a nice hip roll without taking his hands from the guitar. The crash as she hit the floor echoed out through the mic she carried. At another point she tried to wrap the mic cord around another band member's neck and he shoved her back onto her arse mid-stage.
Then she went backstage and came out a minute later without her mic. She proceeded to peel off her gloves (black, opera length, like you do when you're punk) and, holding something in her hand, moved it in long strokes down her forearm, leaving bright red trails.
From where I was standing - at the back with my friends well away from the mosh pit - I had two thoughts: oh, hell, that bitch just sliced up her arms on stage and that's blood; and, dear gods how am I going to get $friend1 and $friend2 - who are right now tripping ballz - out of here before they figure it out and start freaking. And by the way if I freak out, they are surely going to pick up on... oh, yes, she's switched hands and is starting on the other forearm.
There then ensued two of the longest minutes of my life through which I stood paralyzed. I like to think of myself as decisive in a crisis, but at that young age, not so much. I just gaped and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, it penetrated my brain that blood runs and as the song ended and Amphlett raised her red-streaked arms up in triumph I realized that in fact she had NOT cut herself onstage. That object was a tube of blood-red lipstick and those were lipstick streaks.
I think I started breathing again, right about then. And that's my Chrissy Amphlett story.
I was not a DiVinyls fan originally, nor when they reunited. Most people nowadays know them because of their later (1991) hit "I Touch Myself" but originally they were much more punk rock and that's when I saw them.
I saw them in 1983, as the opening band in a four-band show. I wasn't particularly interested in their set and would have come later to the show to hear the Psychedelic Furs, who were the second act. But I was being what we called "bus driver" (surprisingly the definition isn't in Urban Dictionary) for a couple of my friends and they wanted to go. So I went with them to make sure everything was OK.
Did I mention the DiVinyls were pretty punk back then? Yeah, the spikes and safety pins and thrashing. Amphlett spent much of the set screaming into the mic. At one point she actually leaped onto the back of the guitarist who clearly was used to this and just tossed her off with a nice hip roll without taking his hands from the guitar. The crash as she hit the floor echoed out through the mic she carried. At another point she tried to wrap the mic cord around another band member's neck and he shoved her back onto her arse mid-stage.
Then she went backstage and came out a minute later without her mic. She proceeded to peel off her gloves (black, opera length, like you do when you're punk) and, holding something in her hand, moved it in long strokes down her forearm, leaving bright red trails.
From where I was standing - at the back with my friends well away from the mosh pit - I had two thoughts: oh, hell, that bitch just sliced up her arms on stage and that's blood; and, dear gods how am I going to get $friend1 and $friend2 - who are right now tripping ballz - out of here before they figure it out and start freaking. And by the way if I freak out, they are surely going to pick up on... oh, yes, she's switched hands and is starting on the other forearm.
There then ensued two of the longest minutes of my life through which I stood paralyzed. I like to think of myself as decisive in a crisis, but at that young age, not so much. I just gaped and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, it penetrated my brain that blood runs and as the song ended and Amphlett raised her red-streaked arms up in triumph I realized that in fact she had NOT cut herself onstage. That object was a tube of blood-red lipstick and those were lipstick streaks.
I think I started breathing again, right about then. And that's my Chrissy Amphlett story.
