here captured by Larry Hardy while playing for the Cramps on July 25th, 1981, at The Roxy Theatre, Hollywood, CA, with the Gun Club opening, Kid's hair caught fire during the show.
"If I wanted to make an impression on the hometown crowd, then the show on the second night would not be forgotten in a hurry. Halfway through our set, we’d play Lux and Ivy’s song “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” which would segue into a version of Dwight Pullen’s “Sunglasses After Dark.” While the audience was hypnotized by an assault of feedback, rhythm, and flashing strobes, Nick Knox would duck down behind his drums to retrieve a pair of dark sunglasses and put them on, and Lux would yank his out of his pants, giving him an opportunity to do one of his favorite things onstage—expose himself.
Ivy and I would turn our backs to the audience and walk toward our amps, on top of which we had votive candles and our prop sunglasses. Then we would all turn around again and reveal ourselves, cast in shades.
That night, I leaned just a little too far over my amp to fetch my sunglasses. A spark leapt up from the candle onto my hair, and, whooosh, it all went up in flames, igniting the Aqua Net Extra Super Hold hair spray I’d used to make my Ronnie Spector hairdo even more voluminous. The whole outer shell of my hair was now alight, like a flaming wig-hat. Except I didn’t know I was on fire because, one, I couldn’t see the top of my head, and two, I was wearing sunglasses.
Girls in the audience started screaming. Wow, this is so great, I thought. Who would know the Cramps would inspire something like Beatlemania in LA? Seconds later, Bradley Field, who was tour-managing for us, put a damper on things by running out from the wings and showering me with beer. Then Nick Knox jumped over his drums and beat me on the head with his sticks. Wait a minute, I thought. Was I playing that badly? What did I do to deserve this?
By the time I realized what was happening, the flames had been extinguished. The smell of burnt hair lingered, wafting through the entire venue like a funeral pyre of human flesh. The screaming turned to cheering. Without missing a beat, Lux, great shaman that he was, announced to the audience,
“Ladies and gentlemen, the days of miracles have not passed. We present to you Kid Congo . . . the burning bush.”
Kid Congo, “Some New Kind of Kick”
