The Time I Almost Made Love to Michael Hutchence

Back in September of 1997 my buddy Jon scored us some tickets to see INXS at the Orpheum in Boston. INXS hadn’t been huge in years, but they were promoting their new “Elegantly Wasted” album, which was really good.

We got a great parking spot near the venue, and stopped off for a few beers before walking in. At first I didn’t think our seats were great, sitting way up in the balcony. But they were in the center of the first row, and pretty soon I realized that, as long as you didn’t want to touch Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of INXS, they were probably the best seats in the house.

The band opened with their new song “Elegantly Wasted,” which was fine with me. It spoke to my soul at the time. My heart had recently and brutally been torn out months before by a girl from Weymouth, so anything having to do with self-punishment, torture, or unmitigated pain was comforting to me. Sitting in the balcony, mere inches from a drop that maybe wouldn’t kill me, but would hurt tremendously, hospitalize me, and probably involve weeks in a coma and/or on heavy pain medication seemed rather inviting and peaceful – like walking into your grandmother’s house, if your grandmother was Tomas de Torquemada. Or Robert Smith.

You know, what it’s like to date a girl from Weymouth.

Almost immediately the band started playing some of their hits from previous albums. Many bands play only their new songs when they go on tour, but not INXS. Although they had been around for ten years, they were comfortable playing anything they wanted to play, and the fans loved it. Everybody in the auditorium was singing along to every song, and the band was incredible. They were very much a rock band, though many of their hits had a pop flair.

They played the hell out of their instruments.

Michael Hutchence was running all over the stage and belting out the words to each song as if it took no effort, as he didn’t need a microphone. He was an incredible front man, and the crowd ate it up. Leather pants, leather jacket, no shirt, curly hair down to his shoulders… he was like Jim Morrison in his prime, if Jim Morrison had a greater range and a sexy Australian accent.

Every time Hutchence sank to his knees at the edge of the stage women visibly shook, some uncontrollably falling back into their seats. Women five rows deep were becoming spontaneously pregnant, and orgasms were rippling ten or fifteen rows past that. By the time the band played “Need You Tonight,” everyone near the stage – men, women, security… everybody – was lusting after Michael Hutchence, and he obviously loved it, as he was playing into it with every shake of his hips and gyration of his pelvis.

The show was high-energy, and Hutchence didn’t back down. He climbed up on the twelve-foot-high speakers and sang from the top. He rolled on the floor and leapt into the air. He was 37-years-old but danced and performed like a man fifteen years younger. If a fan raised her hand to reach out for him, he ran from the other end of the stage to touch it. He missed no one. He made eye contact with everyone in the building.

I was enjoying myself, and looked over to see Jon doing his famous Jon Dance. His eyes were closed, and he was fist-pumping the sky as he performed this dance that looked somewhat like he was marching in a marching band and twisting at the same time. The Jon Dance is, to me, as iconic as the Techno Viking. I laughed, and felt the best I had felt in months. After so many sleepless nights and endless days, it was nice to simply feel joy, and see Jon doing the Jon Dance – the physical manifestation of the word “joy.”

I turned back to look at the stage as the audience seemed to be bothered by something. The drums were beating the opening, jungle-like beat to “Devil Inside,” and Hutchence had already laughed the evil “Mua-ha-ha-ha” opening laugh, but he was nowhere to be seen. Everyone was looking left and right, up and down, trying to figure out where he was, but to no avail. The guitar started whaling the main riff, and the words were supposed to start any second, yet the frontman was missing. He was toying with the audience. He was playing hide-and-go seek with us like we were four-year-olds. He was a kitten and we were his ball of yarn.

It was awesome. He owned the room, and I started smiling more. His control was godlike, and he knew it.

With the fluttering of thousands of hearts, the emergency exit doors to the left balcony suddenly burst open, and in a bath of spotlights Hutchence poured in us, locked eyes with, and sauntered towards a fan ten feet away. Not singing, but breathing heavily, “Here comes the woman, with the look in her eye… raised on leather… with FLESH on her mind.” Pheremones were visibly radiating from his body, and by the time he was mere inches from the woman’s body her goosebumps had reached sexual climax. Egg cells in her ovaries were already pregnant with his children. He then turned and did the absolutely unexpected.

He walked directly towards me.

I went with it at first. I figured hey, I’m in the center of the front row, and it was the obvious place to get closest to the most fans at once. It also allowed his fans on the floor level to see him. I kept laughing and dancing, loving the music and the way the crowd was going ballistic. I figured he’d stand in front of Jon and I, sing a bit, and then perform on the other side of the balcony before going back downstairs. I looked over at Jon, and he appeared to be oblivious, head facing up with his eyes closed, doing his marching dance with his fists furiously pumping, a giant smile connecting his ears.

I looked back to discover Michael Hutchence standing right in front of me. I don’t mean near me, I mean like if mathematicians had arrived early and marked on the floor the precise spot to be directly in front of me. He was facing me. Staring at me. He wasn’t just in my comfort zone – he was making love to it.

“Devil inside. The devil inside,” he exhaled at me. “Every single one of us. The devil inside.”

He wasn’t speaking to me – he was urging me. He knew what was inside me, and he was going to pull it out with his perfect, sexy hands.

It has to be said that Michael Hutchence wasn’t merely a good-looking man. He was beautiful. Gorgeous. Exquisite, really. He had a chiseled, unshaved face that looked like he could’ve been a dock worker, only he had sultry eyes and hair from a designer’s runway. His lithe body was cut with muscles, and he smelled like the Den of Iniquity. He was the direct descendant of Mary Magdelene, Cleopatra, and Lady Godiva.

That’s when I started to feel uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big fan of INXS, and I’ve always loved their music, but it became increasingly awkward standing mere inches from a gyrating Michael Hutchence who, apparently, decided he was going to sing Devil Inside to me and only me while three thousand people looked on.

“Devil inside. The devil inside,” he tempted me like some painted jezebel. “Every single one of us, the devil inside.”

He undulated. He swayed. He was sensuous and inviting. Hundreds of people directly behind me lurched forward, trying desperately to grasp what was given freely to me. Hutchence knew he was hot. If sex had a tattoo it would be Michael Hutchence.

Still, I was getting more uncomfortable. As much as I appreciated all that he was, and the power he radiated, I’m not into guys. I turned around to see if it was obvious how out of place I felt, and saw countless pairs of jealous eyes. Eyes that were saying, “Make love to him now, you fool! Don’t squander this opportunity! You don’t deserve Michael Hutchence!

I turned back and he was staring at me. He was practically grinding on me.

“Devil inside. The devil inside,” he drenched me. “Every single one of us, the devil inside.”

I looked back at the pleading eyes. They were practically screaming, “Now man! Take him NOW! For the love of everything good and holy, bone that man!”

Turning back to Michael I could swear he was now performing the Dance of the Seven Veils. The stress of having Michael Hutchence seducing me in front of a large audience was becoming too much. I needed to either run away or make love to him, but I could’t wait much longer. I couldn’t even dance any more, because you can’t dance inches from Michael Hutchence without looking foolish. He was so suave and provocative that he probably caused people to tremble just by eating a cheeseburger. You couldn’t look cool standing next to Michael Hutchence. James Dean would’ve looked like a floppy used car inflatable next to him.

I thought about what I was going to say to excuse myself, and realized quickly that nothing was really going to fly. “Excuse me Michael Hutchence, but I think I left the iron on at home? Pardon me, Michael Hutchence, but could you move to the side so that I can leave to hide under a rock?”

And just like that, when I had nothing left and was going to officially become the biggest loser of all time, he turned and sauntered away. His body turned before his head did, maintaining eye contact for just a breath longer so that there would be no question that I had lovemaking in my grasp, and had lost it. Pandora had closed her box.

INXS went on to play a bunch more songs including an encore. They finished just as loud and hard as they started, and the Orpheum continued to shake long after they left the stage. It was incredible.

But I stood there feeling slightly hollow, yet relieved at the same time. I never regretted my decision. Still, I smelled of Michael Hutchence for hours after, and probably had a few of his perfect, curly hairs on my clothes. I felt like I had flown into the face of the sun, and was now standing in a cooling puddle of wax.

Had I chosen differently and decided to make love to Michael Hutchence, our child would be turning twenty-one in a few months. Had we made love, I would already be a grandfather to thousands of children around the globe, and a step-father to untold worlds and tragedies.

I know what it’s like to be in the presence of perfection, and I can honestly say that I don’t need to experience that again. The pressure was simply too much, and far too intimidating. Michael Hutchence was a power that was, perhaps, too potent for the world. The Earth is definitely a sadder place not having him in it, but perhaps we are all safer now than we were back in September of 1997.

And that is how I almost made love to Michael Hutchence.