March 1993. My sister and I discover our taste in music for the first time. Me, U2 (Achtung Baby). Her, INXS (Welcome To Wherever You Are). She's 10 at the time. I'm 12. This is the year I tape everything and anything that sounds like U2 or INXS on the radio. U2 becomes my religion. I go back through the U2 catalogue and buy every U2 album and listen to it religiously. My sister gets hooked onto INXS's back catalogue and discovers "Kick". INXS becomes her religion. The Farriss Brothers, Gary Garry Beers, Kirk Pengilly, and none-other than Michael Hutchence.
This is before mp3's. This is before the internet. This is the time of New Order and Duran Duran's comeback albums. This is the era of Boy George's Crying Game, Spin Doctor's Two Princes, Sting's If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, Arrested Development's Tennessee, Red Hot Chili Pepper's Give It Away, Under the Bridge.
We become hyper aware of rock music, grunge, and we both start to teach ourselves guitar by deconstructing what we're listening to.
Over these years grunge peaks and dies out. "Alt-rock" bands emerge. We start going to all-ages concerts at the Commodore. There were strangely a lot back then, back when it was the old Commodore. But when we come home, we're still religiously listening to everything U2 has ever recorded, and for her, it's still INXS.
Somewhere around 1994 we get a 1200 baud modem for the first time.
Somewhere in 1995-1996 I am tired of listening to U2 and I somehow get into the skatepunk music scene, as well as the shock rock of Marilyn Manson, NIN, and White Zombie. I drag my sister to the White Zombie concert. I'm 15. She's 12. We get caught in a ferocious mosh pit around a stage of flames.
1997 comes around, and INXS releases their new album in about 5 years, and we're more focused on other music, so we're indifferent.
INXS announces a tour, but we're indifferent - it's not what we're listening to.
10 years ago practically to the day, and we're at the PNE. It's one week before school starts - my last year in high school, and her entry into grade 9. 99.3 The Fox has a trailer hitched up broadcasting that the INXS concert is tomorrow, right here, at the Pacific Colleseum.
A sense of nostalgia or duty overwhelms us and we wonder if we should buy tickets. We ask the Fox trailer if they sold tickets, and they didn't. Meh.
We didn't drive at the time and we knew it would be a hassle to get our parents to drive us back to the PNE the next day, so we just let this concert slide.
Our logic?
"It's okay, we'll see them next time."
Famous last words.
On our drive back home from the PNE, as we're entering the Richmond overpass by the airport, an announcer on the radio declares Princess Diana dead. We're in shock.
The next day the world is in mourning and INXS plays in Vancouver without us.
2 months later, I am listening to the radio with my cassettes ready to go. A bunch of INXS songs are playing and I'm thinking, "Wow - this is great! They never play INXS back to back". At the end of the set, they announce Michael Hutchence's death. We're in shock. My 14 year old sister starts crying. Dreams shattered.
June 2006 - 4 days before my 26th birthday. I see INXS for the first time (with new lead singer) at GM Place. I go with my non-INXS fan boyfriend. The ticket would have gone to my then 23 year old sister, but she's living in Scotland for the year. We're sitting 25 rows back and can't see well, but it sounds eerily like Michael Hutchence. A sense of weird emotions overcomes me. I'm 12 again. And the reality of the death of Michael Hutchence hits me like a brick, and I don't know why.
July 2006 - I get a frantic phone call from my sister who randomly found herself at the River Rock Casino with friends that night, and saw a poster advertizing INXS at the River Rock. INXS? River Rock Casino?! We're shocked that we had never heard about this show. She calls up to buy tickets immediately, only to discover that they went on sale the weekend prior, and they're already sold out. Crap. Once again, it doesn't look like it was meant to be. Seeing INXS live to my sister is becoming what seeing the Pixies live were to so many die-hard fans pre-2004: a dream of legendary proportions.
The next day I go to Craigslist and type a sappy story about my little sister, the die hard INXS fan since childhood whose only dream is to see the Farriss brothers and Gary Garry Beers, and Kirk Pengilly shimmy across the stage to her favourite music. I get some crazy offers, but when I discuss offers with my sister, she doesn't know if she should see them, if she's going to be sitting by the wall, or paying $$$$$ to sit up by the ceiling. It's just setting us up for disappointment, right?
A few days later I notice an old posting of some guy selling tickets 7th row, center right. He's in Fort McMurray but I contact him, and he seems legit. Tickets were expensive, but I had to buy them for my sister. I tell her about it and she's stoked but she has no real expectations.
August 27, 2007 almost 10 years ago to the day when we were supposed to see INXS with Michael Hutchence, we're some of the first to arrive at River Rock Casino. We find our seats and they're awesome. The INXS logo is on the stage and INXS is written all over the gear. Her dream is slowly becoming a reality.
We go out for a beer for half an hour, and we come back into the theatre. The theatre is now full. We feel like we are the youngest ones there - the average age there must have been 45. Lots of blonde women, aged 45, strutting their stuff by the front of the stage. I look around and notice this isn't the Orpheum. Nobody's going to tell them to sit down. I look at my 5'2" sister and say, "Want to go stand at the stage?". We do.
We get down to the stage and it's like we're at the Commodore. We're seeing INXS at the Commodore. We know Michael Hutchence is gone, but we're over that. We're not there to see JD Fortune, although it's so funny to see 45 year old women wearing "ROCK STAR" shirts who evidently are. In fact, it's only women at the front, but a few brave men with their wives are there.
The announcer walks on stage and explains that the River Rock is so proud to announce INXS, that they invited INXS to the River Rock but they said that they don't play small venues... ... HOWEVER... if they have a hole in their schedule, they'll come back. Well, there they were.
In an ordinary fashion, the lights went down, and these 47 year old men... all three Farriss Brothers, Gary Gary Beers, and Kirk Pengilly walked out on stage, smiling, and walked into their spots. While all the 45 year old women were grasping for JD Fortune, my sister, whose childhood musical heros are these stalky Aussie men, started to jump up and down in the cutest, hyper fashion and started to shake my arm at her disbelief. After 10 years practically to the day, it was finally happening.

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