The Knack: My Sharona (1979)

My first attempt at being a groupie.

After listening to and loving the "Get The Knack" album in 1979: When I learned that The Knack was coming to the Dallas/Fort Worth Area, I printed out hand-made flyers advertising the concert and stuck them all over my high school's lockers.

Before seeing the show: I made a glittered poster: "We Want Doug Backstage!" 

And a friend lent me her tube-top. When my mom saw the tube-top, she told me I couldn't wear it. OK. I buttoned up my glitter-shirt over it. Then unbuttoned the shirt once we arrived at the show.

The friend's mom dropped us off at SMU's McFarland Auditorium in Dallas. I let a college-boy grab my 14-year-old ass; he then gave me and my friend backstage passes. Where I met the band, got autographs (including Sharona's) on the glossy program, and kissed both the bass player (Prescott Niles) and the guitarist (Berton Averre). 

 

I wore my new baseball-sleeve Knack shirt and jeans-with-Pass-stuck-to-thigh to school the next Monday because I was a big show-off; and especially I wanted to show off to another friend who had recently gone to a KISS concert sans any backstage action! (Yes, I realize that getting backstage to KISS would have been much harder!) :)

I'm good about saving things, but all of these things (the pass, the shirt, the program), my mom later threw out.

p.s. Years later, maybe 1990, I again saw The Knack, this time at a smaller venue, Austin's Back Room, on their downslide. That night, my only contact with a band member was a brief conversation with drummer Bruce Gary in front of the bar. I'd lost my mojo! (Though, in my defense, I had a new girlfriend and was at the club with a couple of gay guys, and was no longer testing my Groupie Powers!) :)