What a fun song and video. She’s too young to even remember it firsthand of course, but it reminds me of the 80s and very early 90s when people had much more open and approachable personalities. She might be making a reference to that directly because her clothes and hair are an homage to 80s fashion.

At the very tail end of this period, in 1993, I went to a Belly concert. Great concert, but the organizers let too many people in. It was a very dangerous mess, and particularly perilous for women who were shorter and generally not as physically strong. After a few minutes of people falling down and getting half-trampled, and several girls passing out, a woman standing near me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hi, I know we don’t know each other, but can I put my arms around your neck? I heard you talking to your friend and you seem nice enough. And I don’t want to get knocked down.”

“Absolutely, this place is crazy” I said. So she hooked her arms around my neck, her hands clasped, and pressed her body against mine so we wouldn’t get separated (the pressure of the crowd in this concert was absurdly strong — I had marks on my stomach for days where I’d been shoved against the stage so hard). We spent most of the concert like that and after the concert she gave me her number (email addresses weren’t a thing then for most people), and like an idiot that I was, I never called her.

Can you imagine anything like that happening today? I can’t. People are so insular now that a woman in these times (or a man) would let themselves be trampled before that would occur.

Everything felt just so different then, and not because I was young. People’s approach to the world was wholly opposite to now, more broad-minded, less suspicious and more available for experience.

Tina, sorry I never called you, but the concert was better (if sweatier) because we got to chat and squee over our adoration of Belly and Tanya Donelly. Even though the circumstances of our meeting weren’t the best, it was a better experience in spite of it all.

Here’s a song Belly played during that concert that absolutely blew our brains out of our heads. Fuck, what a performance that was.