In the High Church of Arena Rock

Every generation finds the gods it needs.

IF WE HAD A COLLECTIVE RELIGION, growing up in Ottawa in the 1980s, it was rock music. If we had a cathedral, it was the Civic Centre, a dingy, ten thousand seat hockey arena nestled under the north stands of the Lansdowne Park football stadium. And while it was a pretty ecumenical church, the high priests came in the form of AC/DC, the Australian rock band led by the brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. 

Our high school was huge, with over 1700 students spread out over five cohorts (Ontario had Grade 13 back then), and it had the entire eighties menagerie of social cliques and types.There were jocks and preps and stoners and nerds and punks and artsy types, most of whom didn’t agree on much. But just about everyone agreed that AC/DC was awesome. 

And so it was that on May 11 1988, what seemed at the time like my entire high school gathered at the Civic Centre for the closest thing we had to mass, as AC/DC was in town for their Blow Up Your Video tour. It was a Wednesday, the end of the school year was hull-up on the horizon, and a sizeable chunk of my classmates had cut class to gather outside the doors to the Civic Centre, drink beer, and get ready to rock. 

I went with a bunch of friends, sitting up high in the stands and looking down on the right side of the stage. I don’t remember much about the show, but I remember the atmosphere in the rink snapping like a mouthful of pop rocks after the opening act, L.A. Guns, skulked off after their short set. I remember AC/DC opening with a big missile coming up out of the stage and disgorging Angus Young playing the headbanging opening riff to Heatseeker on his devil-horned Gibson SG. I remember the singer, Brian Johnson, ringing an enormous bell during Hells Bells. I remember catching sight of some friends from school losing their minds down in general admission, and I remember the cannons that roared at the end of For Those About To Rock. But mostly it was like almost every good arena concert I had seen: an ecstatic mental wash of guitars and drums and lights and explosions and screams.

My first real rock concert had come almost four years before, also at the Civic Centre, in late 1984. My friend Ken, always cooler than I, had bought us tickets to see Iron Maiden, who he was really into, though I was more excited to see the opening band, Twister Sister. We lived just over the canal from Lansdowne Park, so Ken and I got ready at our house and then walked across the bridge, joining a metalhead procession of leather and booze and pot. I was a bit freaked out by the scene outside the arena (watch the classic documentary “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” for the flavour of it) though it was even crazier inside. I couldn’t believe how much smoke there was hanging over the crowd. 

I didn’t even really understand how concerts worked – Ken had to explain to me the whole concept of an “opening band” – but Twisted Sister was amazing. They only really had a couple of great songs (“We’re not gonna take it” and “I wanna rock”) but they milked them for everything they could. At one point, clearly running out of material, the singer Dee Snider brought up the house lights and refused to play any more songs until everyone in the rink was standing up, which included getting the whole crowd to bully two laggards who were nailed to their chairs up in the rafters. Then he told everyone look, you guys are a pretty great crowd, but your city has a bad name. “I’m gonna give you a new name”, he said. Then Dee Snider made everyone chant “Otta-fuckin-wa” for about ten minutes straight. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. 

Iron Maiden put on a great show but they were exfoliatingly loud. By the halfway mark I was leaning over with my fingers in my ears against the pain, and I was relieved when I looked over and saw Ken doing the same. I think we left before the encores, ears ringing and eyes watering, but happy as could be. And as we walked out, I noticed how the windows on the doors in the entrance way had fogged up completely as the steam bath inside the arena came up against the winter cold, and on those windows someone had written, in enormous letters, “Otta-fuckin-wa”. 

It was like being admitted into something magical and grown-up. Not quite a cult, but definitely a fellowship, with its own rules and symbols and rituals and grammar: the logic of an opening act, the structure of a setlist, the breaks for guitar and drum solos and sing-alongs and the part where they introduce the band, the obligatory ballads illuminated by a sea of Bic-lighters. All of which was crazy exciting and, it felt like, more than a bit dangerous. 

I have no idea how many shows I saw at the Civic Centre over the following decade.After Iron Maiden there was Bryan Adams, Sting, and Peter Gabriel (at least twice), INXS, David Bowie, Midnight Oil, John Cougar Mellencamp, Billy Idol with the Cult and, of course, AC/DC. There was basically a default rule, which was that if a band came through town, we would go, though I skipped U2 because I was a snob and thought they sucked. 

Arena rock as a genre is in a weird place right now, thanks to a shifting media ecosystem, the changing economics of touring, and the simple turnover of generations. There are still bands touring and playing indoor arenas, but what is weird is how many of them are holdovers from the 80s and even 70s. (Among the upcoming concerts at the Bell Centre in Montreal, I see Aerosmith, Heart, Cheap Trick, Bruce Springsteen, and Iron Maiden). In general, the scene seems to have taken on a sort of distorted barbell shape, with a small number of mammoth acts like the Rolling Stones or U2 selling out 80 000 seat stadiums, while everyone else plays smaller venues topping out at a few thousand seats. The old days of a steady parade of popular acts playing a ten to fifteen thousand seat arena have disappeared. 

As for the Ottawa Civic Centre, it is still around, for now. It’s scheduled for demolition at some point as part of a more general planned renovation of Lansdowne Park. But it doesn’t matter, because bands haven’t played there in over a decade. (The last rock concert there, appropriately enough, was Deep Purple). 

Every generation finds its own gods, and while Taylor Swift isn’t entirely my bag, I kind of get the mania. Who wouldn’t want to be part of something so huge? Back in 1988, the day after the AC/DC concert, it was pretty much all anyone wanted to talk about – the songs and the explosions, where they sat, what they saw. One buddy of ours who was down in general admission said he had actually managed to reach up and strum Angus Young’s guitar; there was a rumour about another kid who had snared a guitar pick off the floor. 

But what mattered weren’t the particulars of your story. What mattered was that you were there. 

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I’m working on a series of posts about the culture wars of the late 80s and 90s, but in the meantime we’ll be sort of bouncing around a bit, thematically. As always, thanks for reading, and I’d appreciate you sharing it with anyone who might find it enjoyable as well. — ap