音樂&人羣&荷爾蒙:披頭士喚醒的一切
I think I had my first orgasm at a Beatles concert — then again, how would I have known? When you’re preteen, prepubescent and pretty much pre-everything, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” seems the height of erotic ambition. And that was especially true in 1964, before the sexual revolution and the Internet made that kind of ignorance unimaginable.
我想我第一次的高潮是在“披頭士”(Beatles)的演唱會上——是啊，那時我怎麼知道呢？十一二歲，還不到青春期，什麼都不懂的年紀，《我想握住你的手》(I Want to Hold Your Hand)似乎就是愛慾的終極目標。況且當時是1964年，性解放運動和互聯網都還沒有出現，這樣的無知還是有可能的。
By the time the Beatles showed up in Glasgow, on the final leg of their second Scottish visit that year, my friends and I were already fanatically devoted. Transistor radios were hidden in our school desks, earpiece cords accessed through inkwells, and afterschool hours were spent listening to 45s in the home of the one friend who owned a record player.
那一年“披頭士”在格拉斯哥演出，這是他們第二次蘇格蘭巡演的最後一站，我和朋友都是他們的狂熱歌迷。我們把晶體管收音機藏在課桌底下，用墨水瓶擋着耳機線偷聽他們的歌，放學後就去一個家裏有唱機的朋友家裏，沒完沒了地聽他們的45轉唱片。
To see our idols in person required sneakiness and elaborate planning. Parental permission, had we asked for it, would not have been forthcoming, and tickets were available only by mail — city authorities being keen to avoid the camping-out chaos that had preceded earlier events.
爲了親睹偶像風采，我們得做不少鬼鬼祟祟的周密計劃。假如徵求父母許可，一定會遭到斷然拒絕，演唱會門票也只能靠郵購——市政府竭力想避免他們早先演唱會時發生的那種歌迷徹夜露宿搶票的混亂場面。
Before the Internet and Ticketmaster stepped in, big-name tickets were typically purchased one way: by lining up on the street at night alongside throngs of hardy fans and waiting for a box office or a record store to open at 9 a.m. Since most of my early concertgoing took place in Scotland, those streets were almost always damp and the temperatures abysmal.
那時候還沒有互聯網和Ticketmaster訂票網站，要買大牌明星的演唱會票子，一般只有一種辦法：整晚在街上和大羣死忠歌迷一起排隊，等着售票處或賣票的唱片店上午9點開門。我小時候大都是在蘇格蘭看演唱會，街上總是那麼陰冷潮溼。
Yet some of my fondest memories — and closest friendships — were forged in those lines, as thermoses and joints were shared and singalongs proliferated. Once, sleeping in an alley behind the Edinburgh Playhouse before buying tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show, I awoke to find myself being spooned by a derelict, attracted not by the Boss but by my sandwiches and sleeping bag.
但是許多最美好的記憶和最親密的友誼就是在那一次次的排隊時鑄成的，大家一起吃烤肉，用保溫瓶喝熱水， 一起大聲唱歌。有一次，我去買布魯斯·斯普林斯汀(Bruce Springsteen)演出的票，在愛丁堡劇場後面的巷子裏睡着了，醒來發現自己被一個露宿街頭的流浪漢抱着，他不是受“老闆”（斯普林斯汀的綽號——譯註）吸引而來，而是看中了我的三明治和睡袋。
Nothing so uncivil marred my hours-long wait outside the Odeon to see the Beatles. Around the Odeon, a beautiful old cinema that was demolished in 2013, the line snaked and swelled. Willowy young women in beehive hairdos and bright raincoats, feigning boredom and pretend-smoking Players, flirted with the coppers on horseback who kept a wary eye on us and shooed away nosy drunks. Only afterward did we learn of the riots and vandalism that erupted after we were safely inside, as those without tickets created their own entertainment by overturning vehicles and smashing store windows.
但是我在奧丁劇場之外排隊幾小時，等着看“披頭士”的時候，卻沒發生這麼不文明的掃興事。奧丁是一個漂亮的老電影院，2013年被拆掉了。當晚，劇場外排起了長蛇一樣的大隊，人潮洶涌。一浪一浪留着蜂窩頭，穿着亮色雨衣的女孩們裝出百無聊賴的樣子，假裝抽菸，和騎警們調情；他們一邊警惕地望着我們，一邊還得忙着趕走臭烘烘的醉漢。事後，我們才知道當我們安全進入劇場之後，外面有暴亂和破壞事件發生——沒買到票的人掀翻車輛，砸破商店櫥窗，以此自娛自樂。
Of the concert itself, I recall almost nothing besides the screaming, a hive hysteria as hard to explain as it is embarrassing to relate. (The Internet tells me the Beatles sang 10 songs that night, and had no fewer than six supporting acts, but I vaguely recall only the incomparable Mary Wells.) From our spots in the balcony, we couldn’t hear a single word. What we saw, when we stood on our seats, was a tsunami of crazed women bearing down on four skinny lads who seemed heartbreakingly vulnerable in their smart little suits and floppy bangs. Unprotected by the slabs of equipment that would later barricade us from groups like Deep Purple and Cream, they looked like prey.
至於演出本身，除了尖叫我幾乎什麼也記不起來了，完全是羣體性的歇斯底里，很難解釋，想起來也覺得尷尬（網上的資料寫着“披頭士”當晚唱了10首歌，有至少6個樂隊或藝人暖場，但我只能模糊地想起無與倫比的瑪麗·威爾斯[Mary Wells]）。從我們在樓上的位置，幾乎一個字也聽不見。我們站在椅子上，只能看見瘋狂的女人們，如同海嘯一般，不住衝向四個瘦骨如柴的小夥，他們穿着可愛的小衣服，留着鬆鬆垮垮的發簾，脆弱得讓人心疼。後來“深紫”(Deep Purple)、“奶油”(Cream)之類樂隊演出時，臺上會有厚重的裝備，用來把歌迷和樂隊隔開，此時卻沒有這樣的東西，他們顯得好像獵物一樣。
They should have been terrified. We were a mob, and had we all chosen to follow the frenzied front-seaters who tried to storm the stage, there’s little that the heavies planted nervously below could have done to stop us. But we were too busy fainting and sobbing to mount an offensive, and too grateful to the stewards who plucked the unconscious to safety. (In the decades that followed, watching bands like Joy Division, the Stranglers and the Sex Pistols electrify venues in London and Manchester — places where hoodlums and toffs happily rubbed shoulders — I would see many superfans pass out, though probably less from romantic yearning than from an excess of head banging.)
他們本可能會害怕的。我們就是一羣烏合之衆，如果我們學着前座那些想衝上舞臺的狂熱歌迷們的話，臺下那些緊張兮兮的大塊頭保鏢們根本攔不住我們。但我們忙着暈倒、抽泣，顧不上發起攻勢，也很感激那些把暈倒的人拖到安全處去的警衛們。在接下來的幾十年裏，看“快樂分裂”(Joy Division)、“扼殺者”(Stranglers)和“性手槍”(Sex Pistols)在倫敦和曼徹斯特的場地裏煽風點火的時候——那裏都是流氓阿飛成羣結隊，勾肩搭背的地方——我也常常看到許多超級歌迷暈倒，不過不是因爲滿心浪漫渴望，而是因爲互相撞腦袋撞得太狠了。
That night in 1964 was the start of a journey that consumed most of my free time in my teens and 20s. Music, even more than the movies I made a career reviewing, taught me the joy of collective experience and especially the power of mass seduction. And though Johnny Rotten’s ferrety features and snarling delivery might have seemed a long way from John Lennon’s placid professionalism, their grip on a room — and on our libidos — was identical.
從1964年的那天晚上起，一段消耗了我十幾歲到二十幾歲所有空餘時間的旅行開始了。我是專業影評人，但還是音樂帶給我更多關於羣體經歷的快感，特別是讓我見識了大衆情人的力量。儘管“壞牙強尼”(Johnny Rotten)雪貂般的外表和咆哮般的歌聲與約翰·列儂(John Lennon)平靜溫和的職業主義相去甚遠，但他們吸引歌迷——乃至我們的力比多——的力量是一樣的。
Only much later would I fully appreciate that the intimacy of those long-ago places, from clubs to a former bingo hall, was nurtured less by their size than by the way we used them. No forest of upraised cellphones blocked our view of the stage and one another; no one was tweeting or videotaping or posting selfies to Facebook.
直到很久以後，我才真正懂得欣賞那些以前的演出場地——從那些俱樂部到一個遊戲廳改建的場地——它們有一種親近感，不是因爲它們的大小，而是因爲我們使用這些場地的方式。沒有高高舉起的手機擋住我們觀看舞臺、觀看彼此的視線；沒有人發推特、拍視頻或者在Facebook上發自拍。
Without those technological barriers, concerts had an immediacy that’s all but lost today. That’s especially true of stadium events, where we’re pushed farther and farther from our musical heroes, the screens are supersized and the layers of impersonality daunting. With a cellphone in front of me, would I have locked eyes with some of my most memorable lovers-to-be? Would I have rescued, or even noticed, the ratty little dog that someone brought to a packed Buzzcocks show and promptly forgot? (He loved that first set, though.)
沒有這些科技帶來的障礙，演唱會上總有一種親密的氣氛，到如今已經蕩然無存。特別是在體育場舉辦的那些盛會，我們離自己的音樂英雄們愈來愈遠，轉播屏幕過於巨大，一層層的觀衆席完全取消了個性，令人沮喪。當我面前擺着一個手機的時候，我還能目不轉睛地望着臺上那些最難忘的戀慕對象們嗎？我還能像當年那樣，在“嗡嗡雞”(Buzzcocks)擁擠的演唱會上，救下一隻被主人帶來然後又忘到腦後的可憐小狗嗎？（不過它挺喜歡演唱會的第一節的。）現在的我可能根本就不會注意到它。
What I treasure most about those vivid, unmediated, sometimes scary days — aside from tickets that often cost no more than the price of a pint — is that they uniquely belong to those who were there. At a time when very little live pop music was televised, most of the really interesting stuff inevitably happened off camera. No Instagram or Tumblr posts memorialized your most idiotic behavior for prospective employers or partners to condemn, giving public events a liberating privacy that’s rapidly evaporating.
關於那段歷歷在目、單刀直入，有時候甚至有點可怕的日子，我最珍惜的除了便宜的票價（通常比一品託酒還便宜），便是那種現場感：它們只屬於當時在場的那些人。那時候現場流行音樂會幾乎沒什麼機會上電視，大多數真正有意思的事情都發生在鏡頭之外。沒有Instagram或是Tumblr帖子去記下你那些白癡的行爲，好讓未來的僱員或者夥伴看了指責你，那個時候，公共活動中有種讓人安心的隱私，如今卻早就蒸發了。
Back then, almost every concert souvenir, from the posters you harvested to the tickets you shivered all night to buy, sparked memories that no outsider could electronically gate-crash. If you wanted to know what happened, you had to listen to my stories or read my diaries. Try the one with the Beatles on the cover.
在那個時候，幾乎所有演唱會的紀念品，從大批拿回來的海報到哆嗦了整夜買回來的票子，都會成爲閃亮的回憶，外人是不能靠着電子設備硬闖進來的。如果你想知道演唱會上發生了什麼，就得看我寫的報道，或者看我寫的日記。不妨看看這一段吧，“披頭士”就在封面上呢。
