It is a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt with "Industrial" art and WORK 242 on the front, and the show dates on the reverse. I obtained this shirt on the secondary market. I would love any comments from anyone who was present at these sold-out shows!
Friday, July 9, 2010
T-Shirt of the Week: Work 242
This is a classic 242 shirt from the Front X Front Tour; this particular shirt is from the Chicago Metro shows from May 12 & May 13, 1989.
It is a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt with "Industrial" art and WORK 242 on the front, and the show dates on the reverse. I obtained this shirt on the secondary market. I would love any comments from anyone who was present at these sold-out shows!
It is a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt with "Industrial" art and WORK 242 on the front, and the show dates on the reverse. I obtained this shirt on the secondary market. I would love any comments from anyone who was present at these sold-out shows!
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I attended this show back on Friday, May 12th, 1989 at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago, Illinois.
ReplyDeleteThis was a two date concert (May 12th and 13th, 1989) since Chicago has always been considered Front 242's second home outside of Brussels, Belgium and of course, was the North American epicenter of Industrial Dance Music via the Wax Trax! Label located at 2449 North Lincoln Ave. in the western portion of Lincoln Park / Loyola University neighborhoods.
Needless to say, sold out shows both evenings. Packed house. Wall to wall people on the ballroom floor and standing room only in the balcony.
So many people out in front of the Metro, that they had to move everyone across the street so as to clear a path for people going to see the Chicago Cubs baseball team play down the street at Wrigley Field that evening.
Amusing to see the quizzical looks of the locals / suburbanites coming into town for the game and having to run the gauntlet of several hundred black clad and menacing / scowling Industrial fans on the sidewalk.
A couple of the bewildered Cubbie fans would look up at the marquee and ask themselves outloud "Front twohundred and forty two? ... What's that?" :-)
The kicker is that when the doors were finally opened, security gave the go ahead for everyone to return to the area in front of the venue from where they were waiting across the street and it was as if someone had said "UNLEASH THE RIVETHEADS!" because there was this HUGE mass / entity of people that crossed North Clark Street all at the same time resulting in:
- Cars screeching to a halt.
- The sound of automatic door locks clicking shut echoed in the air.
- Terrified car occupants were left with mouths agape and eyes bulging.
- Some cars suffered multiple bootprints / handprints on the hoods, windshields, and bumpers as a sea of black flowed around and over said vehicular obstructions. Who knows, some fans might have even gone under said vehicles. It was that crazy.
Just a sea of black clad fans.
Good show none the less.
ReplyDeleteWas front and center of the stage and was literally crushed against the chest high stage.
Cool thing is that during one of the songs, Richard came over and sort of grasped my hand in a sort of power handshake and held it for a couple of moments as he belted out the lyrics. I had to laugh because I was a bit startled by it and was already releasing my grip and he just kept on gripping my hand.
I think that this was because I had arrived so early to wait outside the venue (I'm talking like at 9 AM ... show began at 10 PM) to hopefully meet the band, that I managed to see Richard heading down the street around noon to purchase some Cubs memorabilia from a sidewalk vendor.
Chugged down the street after him (nobody else was around or crazy enough to have waited so early for the band like yours truly) and managed to blubber out some form of a greeting to him. "Me fan. Front 242 fan. You Richard right? Me love 242. Watcha buying? Blah-blah-blah."
Needless to say, he was genuinely amused at my early waiting and then went ahead and purchased a Cubbies baseball and a couple of other items.
We parted company and I said that I looked forward to seeing the band that evening. As Richard was strolling up the street to return to the venue, I caught him cheekily taking the baseball, doing an exaggerated pitcher's wind-up, and playfully pretend that he was gonna smash out the windshield of a car parked nearby with it. He then glanced back at me with a smirk and a sly look.
Pretty much sums up Richard's mischievous and good humoured personality.
;-)
Does anyone know if this shirt was also available as a short-sleeve t-shirt? thanks.
ReplyDeleteI have this shirt as a short-sleeve, size Medium. The back print is off-centre so I always suspected it was not official merch but was printed up on the cheap by some unofficial enterprise to be sold on the night (I acquired it some years later from a charity shop for about 50p!). Really interesting reading about the gig, thanks Trollcrusher.
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