Destiny’s Child’s First Customer

The year was 1999, and it was the summer after high school graduation. A pager was clipped to the front pocket of my jeans. Silver braces glinted under my brown lipliner-stained lips.

Before their music had hit the airwaves in my city, myself and a group of girls went to see a little known RnB group named 112 in concert. There were only two radio stations, a top 40s station and an alternative rock station, which forced this hiphop head/ RnB lover to seek out her music.

I’d tune into co-op radio early Wednesday mornings before school when DJ Flipout played hiphop/RnB tracks for an hour. KUBE, an all hiphop/RnB radio station in the next big city only came on in the car, and I listened to it religiously static and all. There was that heavenly, all too brief, stint when BET entered Canadian television networks.

The concert wasn’t in the giant hockey arena or the football stadium, but in the smallest of three venues at the time.

The girls and I showed up thrumming with teenage energy. Our faces were heavy with freshly applied makeup and our hair heat-styled.

Upon arrival, I learned there was an opening act and it was an RnB group I had never heard of.

A group of four girls skipped and danced onto the stage. They roused and pumped the crowd as they took their positions. The songs were upbeat and catchy, but also strong, authoritative, and no bullshit, though 17-year-old me would’ve described it as in-your-face, don’t-mess-with-me, talk-to-the-hand music.

“Hey, they’re really good!” I yelled out to the girls, bouncing with one arm in the air. I had been swept up and enamoured by the music, and to my dismay I was the only one jamming to it. One of the girls got up and joined me. The others were caught up in their own excitable chatter while waiting for 112.

I had scanned the crowd in front of me, and part of me wonders where they all are now. Do they look back and think about how we were privy to the beginning of something big?

That night while riding the high of the crowd’s energy and singing with 112 until my voice went hoarse, I grew appreciative of unknown musicians as opening acts.

I walked into HMV soon after and scoped out the new release wall. I loved being in that store. Time seemed to suspend while perusing racks on racks of CDs, cassettes, and records, or listening at a headphone station to whichever CDs the staff put on display.

Shops were the only spaces for buying music back then, unless you count Columbia House’s mail-in service, and they beckoned all walks of life. Apps and file-sharing afford a lot of convenience, but I’m beginning to think that I don’t need another reason to not leave the house. There was a time when we were forced to be around other humans, and for awhile I was happy to step away from society and sit in the lap of accessibility. I’m not so sure how beneficial all this convenience is anymore.

I couldn’t locate Destiny’s Child, and asked a sales clerk for help. They'd never heard of them and had to search on a computer. I am even nostalgic of music store’s holier-than-thou staff wrinkling their noses at my teen spirit.

The Writing’s On The Wall became our anthem the rest of that summer. Maybe it’s the memories it holds, or it’s the carefree and happy girl not yet calloused by the world who listened to it, but that CD remains Destiny’s Child’s best album.