Corey Hart: February 5, 1986

 

My primary memory of this concert is being sick as a dog. I had a fever of 103 (yes, just like the Foreigner song!) but there was no way I would miss Corey Hart. I sucked it up, slightly delirious, not exactly sure why my parents let me go, but going all the same, with my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. I believe this was the first show I saw on the University of Michigan campus -- the first of many, as it turned out. Hill Auditorium, famously designed to have perfect  acoustics, remains a wonderful place to see concerts.

Corey Hart, as you might remember, was a Canadian artist best known for the hits "Sunglasses at Night" and "Never Surrender." He continued to record throughout the '90s but today works primarily as a songwriter (for his wife, singer Julie Masse, among others). When I saw him, he was promoting his second album, Boy in the Box, the title track of which, I kid you not, includes the lyric, "Pull up your socks / You're the boy in the box." He performed it, and other tracks from BITB and First Offense, in the overly emotive style any fan of his albums would expect, throwing in the occasional melodramatic gesture for good measure. I'll admit I ate it up. I was 13 and he was foxy -- what can I say? I'm not sure how long I wore my Boy in the Box T-shirt before I started to feel like a dork.