Big Hair Days

I got a call last week informing me that a concert I had bought tickets for has been cancelled. It was disappointing, but I decided to go out and see who else was coming to town in the next few months. I see that Ratt and Poison are going to be in town next month. I am still debating on whether or not I want to go. I haven’t seen either one before so it seems like a good opportunity. I still have to see if I can talk Heidi into going with me. I’m not opposed to going alone, but having someone else go would still be nice.

So I started thinking about all those “Big Hair” bands from the 80’s. You know what? I never saw any of them in concert. I’m not sure why exactly, except that I just didn’t go to a lot of concerts in high school. I listened to them on the radio and I bought the albums, but that was about it. These days I have quite the CD collection of greatest hits and random 80’s compilations. I was joking with a friend of mine recently that I think I own all of the “Power Ballads” ever made.

So how about a Top 5 Power Ballad list?

1. Headed for a Heartbreak- Winger
2. Home Sweet Home- Motley Crue
3. House of Pain- Faster Pussycat
4. Heaven- Warrant
5. I Won't Forget You- Poison

Oh, Let's do 5 more. I can't resist...

1. Ballad of Jayne- LA Guns
2. Honestly- Stryper
3. Love of a Lifetime- Firehouse
4. High Enough- Damn Yankees
5. Fly to the Angels- Slaughter
   

One thing I will say about the 80’s is that sometimes I miss my big hair. Sure, it was a lot of time and energy that I could have devoted to other things like sleeping or homework or whatever, but it didn’t seem like a hardship at the time. It was a like an art project that I created every day. My poor hair was tortured within an inch of its life between color, perm, hot rollers, curling irons, mousse, and hairspray. And the teasing! It’s a wonder I have any hair left. Still, it was what we all did at the time, so at least we can all suffer with the bad pictures together. I came across this picture and I thought it was so perfect for that time period. I place this around the spring of 1989 before I graduated.

Can you believe it? The white nail polish, the torn jeans… and my hair! At least in this picture, it’s a little harder to tell that my hair is both red and black. This was one of a series of pictures and the others are not quite so kind, I assure you. I had dyed my hair black and it took forever to grow out. It was a complete disaster and I looked like some sort of weird raccoon. Eventually, I had my hair layered to get most of the black color out and then kept coloring the rest of it. Bad idea. You just can’t color over black. Now of course, I leave it to professionals.

(Sometimes I still get the urge to perm it.)