Take me back to Summerfest 2013: The Go-Go’s at BMO Harris Pavilion

My favorite Summerfest memory comes from July 2013. It was one of those days when we decided to go on the day and instead of focusing on a specific show, and we’d figure out what to see that day. My wife and a friend looked at the schedule and decided to go to MGMT. I didn’t go to that show with them, avoiding what could be described as “millennial hell,” because I had something else circled for the day: The Go-Go’s.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, and that rock doesn’t have internet, The Go-Go’s are the most successful all-female rock band of all time. Their 1981 album Beauty and the Beat topped the Billboard charts, the first time that happened for an all-female band writing their material and playing their instruments. No band has done that since, which says something about the world, but I’m not sure exactly what, and I won’t be discussing it further.

Beauty and the Beat topped two million units in sales, and ended up being the second-highest selling album of the year. Their follow-up, 1982’s Vacation, would spawn one of their most iconic hits, but failed to reach those same heights. Then came 1984’s Talk Show and that was it for the band.

The group had many reunions in the years since, but it was never what it was and never could be. The magic of The Go-Go’s is that they were always doing two things at once. They were the All-American girl band, celebrating what it was to be young and the feeling that anything is possible. They were also a punk band, far brasher than their girl-next-door image promoted by MTV. Whoever you thought they were, their music always remained honest and sincere, with lyrics both personal and relatable.

Did I know all this in 2013? Sort of. The concert itself was serendipitous, as earlier that summer I had found a copy of Beauty and the Beat at a rummage sale and proceeded to wear it out. I had always been familiar with The Go-Go’s, the same way everyone who watched MTV or VH1 or bought an ’80s hits compilation at a gas station was. I knew the music videos, but I missed the moment. The 2013 concert gave me a taste of what that moment might have been like, and I loved it.

I went alone and planned to stand at the back of the BMO Harris Pavilion to watch the band perform, like the very not-creepy person I am. As I was grabbing a beer during the opener, I ran into an older woman I had worked with years before at a restaurant, who was also there alone to see the show. She, with a bold stubbornness that could only be found in her generation, convinced me to sneak down to the first few rows to watch the show. We made our way down to about the third row, which was mostly empty at the time. As the opener’s set continued and the main show drew closer, the row began to fill in, squeezing us and forcing us to move into an increasingly limited number of empty seats. By the time The Go-Gos began, and we were stretched to our limit of plausibly being in this section, with other sneaky people in front and behind us being ejected. She left, and I never saw her again.

By the time The Go-Go’s kicked into “Vacation,” there was no longer room for two extra people in the row, but there was room for one, so there I stood smiling and laughing with those around me as they wondered why they maybe had a little less leg room than they thought they would have, as we enjoyed a great performance from a band I’d never dreamed I’d see live.

Looking back on Summerfest 1984, it’s hard not to imagine the attendees feeling the same way. Despite being one of the biggest bands in the world for about three years, that was the first time they had ever played Summerfest or Milwaukee. With their break-up later that year, it might have seemed in retrospect like the last time as well.

I couldn’t find a setlist for the 1984 show, but we can probably guess. They only had three albums, and one of them was new. “Head Over Heels” is not only the biggest hit from Talk Show, it is, in my opinion, their very best song. Hearing that live in the year of its release would be a gift because we can never be young again, and neither can the bands we love. Even if they were at their breaking point, at their lowest point in something as simple as getting along, it was still the last time they were young, they were the Go-Go’s, and they were at Summerfest. Take me back.

The Go-Go’s have been in a cycle of retiring and reappearing ever since that 2013 show I spontaneously attended. They’ve played Coachella and the Cruel World festivals, and embarked on some assorted mini tours, but never again have they graced the stage in Milwaukee. In a way, that makes the 2013 show I went to feel just as special as that 1984 one might have been. I guess that will have to do.