In our minds, local heavy metal heroes, Twisted Sister, had made the big time by playing Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan on a Friday night in January, 1986. Touring behind the “Come Out and Play” collection with the flip up album cover and song echoing the cult classic movie “The Warriors”, this concert felt like a coronation after years of crushing it in the Long Island club scene and beyond. A chain link fence was, what seemed like at the time, an elaborate and appropriate backdrop to the legendary band playing on such an iconic stage. The tour may have also been the beginning of the end as I read somewhere that the tour itself was not financially successful, but for the diehards in the audience that night, it was a raucous celebration.
For those of us that were on the front lines, the concert at Radio City Music Hall was the culmination of many rocking nights at clubs like Speaks, Hammerheads, Rockaways and our favorite local club, Beggars Opera on Jamaica Avenue in Queens. I had bought the indie label vinyl records and proudly carried my fragile S.M. F. Friend of Twisted Sister plastic card in my wallet until it was missing pieces and ultimately lost when my wallet was dropped on Queens Boulevard and later returned in the mail from downtown Manhattan missing only a little bit of cash and my treasured S.M.F. credit card sized plastic membership memento from the early daze.
I later met an interesting IT dude while I was working in law enforcement who looked vaguely familiar with an interesting unique goatee. My suspicions that this gent was the great bass player Mendoza who was now utilizing his talents to train my people on the down low. I called him into my office and asked him point blank and he laughed. I told him about my S.M.F. Friend of Twisted Sister card story and he said he would have liked to have seen it as there were not a lot of them left. I never gave him up to our personnel, as he said the celebrity thing sometimes got in the way of his side gig as a tech wizard.
Twisted Sister was one of the great bands and success stories in the history of rock and roll.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame worthy?
Hell Yeah!
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Rock on!
GQ