SHARING THE SHOWS
May 18, 2018 was the birthdate of this blog, so a reflection is written on this date every year. So to say this has been quite the year is under the statement what with this pandemic. Around the middle of March, every concert I was looking forward to gradually shut down: the Tom Petty tribute band. Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. Runaway Gin. Dead and Company. PHISH! But hey, I’m not one of those idiots who think we need to open up just so we can have our shows. I need to stay alive and healthy.
So before this pandemic started, I had some great experiences with old friends and new friends. Highlights: I met Bob at Red Rocks, who helped me get through that challenge that was the Colorado altitude. Kelly saw me get sick from that Fenway Frank at Phish’s Boston run. Nicole and I were in the VIP section at Drive-By Truckers due to her adorable twins-in-progress J. Braving Sun Dogs and Dark Star Orchestra with a back injury and finding alternative ways to enjoy the show. Maggie has been my main “road dog” (to use Kelly’s term) this year. We’ve explored new bands together, done a couple of livestreams, gotten lost in the streets of Richmond, shared “in jokes”, you name it. Most of the pictures feature her, and her phone does a great job of capturing our pictures. She’s also got a keen eye for visual detail, being a painter. Maggie, if Not Enough Concerts ever goes professional, I’m hiring you as my photographer. Now that this new normal has hit, Not Enough Concerts is…not enough concerts. I felt the lack when I was grocery shopping at Wal-Mart this week, and Parliament’s “Flashlight” emanated from the speakers. I found myself stepping in beat with the song, shopping cart and all. While I’ve found alternatives to concertgoing to channel my musical energy, they still don’t replace the concert. Livestreams are fun. I shared in a Dropkick Murphy’s show with Nicole and Maggie, and a Dead and Company one with Maggie. I also got to see Drew/Brometheus’s band Rider perform a great show. But concertgoing, for me, isn’t just about the band performing. It’s about the entire experience. It’s about the camaraderie among diehard fans. It’s about the in-jokes we make at the shows (“Special Guest” “Been waiting for the bus all day”). It’s about the new restaurants we experience prior to the shows (NY Deli in Williamsburg is a new favorite spot of Maggie’s and mine). I long for the day when I can yell “Special Guest” when the opener comes on stage and then leaves. On a more positive note, I’ve picked up my guitar again. I wrote a previous blog about it, but it’s been a good outlet. It’s also been a good way to connect with others and show my friendship. I learned “St. Stephen” for Maggie, “Waiting for the Bus” for Drew, and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” for my Mom, a diehard Queen fan. And I’m learning a new one for a friend who shall remain nameless here, and who will get a video. I only wish Zoom didn’t have that delay; this way I could jam with Drew, Jesus, and Carol. Oh well. At any rate, on a non-concert-related topic, my time in Hampton Roads will be coming to an end this summer. I was offered a job in Washington, DC, and while shows are suspended for now, I look forward to being able to explore the venues of our nation’s capitals, in addition to all the museums and other landmarks. I like to think this blog was a contributing factor in me getting that job. I’m a Type-A overachiever, but concertgoing helps me channel my Type B side; the blog lies at the halfway point between the letters (A-/B+?). I finished up a semester as Interim Chair for my department, and Maggie invited me out to see Blind and Dirty perform at the Cowboy Sports Grill in Yorktown, Virginia. I was wearing a T-shirt from Norfolk’s Muse Writers Center that said “Write Where You Are” on the back. So I got a brainstorm. Why not write about the show? So I took a writer’s stance at the show, observing a dude in a Hawaiian shirt blowing bubbles, a woman in her 70s cutting up a rug, and the realization that I wasn’t going to enough concerts at the time. The next morning, I launched this site. That night, Marcus King at Tradition’s with Dean, Dave, and Pat, and another blog post. The following week, a U2 show AND a Slayer show with Alan in Chicago, and another blog post. From that point forward, it wasn’t just about the show; every concert gave me an opportunity to write. And as a result, I developed a daily writing habit, which essentially led to me getting a contract with a book publisher to write How to Write a Happy Bachelor. I like to think the interviewers saw an upcoming book on my CV, which tends to attract academic search committees. An additional nice feeling was when Patrick from Last Fair Deal read my post about his show last August and commented on it. Adam from Suggesting Rhythm did the same thing. While the notoriety from that isn’t quite the same thing as having a book published worldwide, it still made me feel pretty awesome. And even though I won’t be living in Hampton Roads by the time your groups start playing in public, the memories of you will always be there. And I’ll be back to visit; hopefully, your shows coincide with that. And you can always play in DC! And to all the Hampton Roads people I’ve been grooving with these past few years (Maggie, Drew, Gary, Mark, Keith, Wes, Ashley, Chelsea, Bert, Eve, Dean, Dave), our experiences will always be with me. And even if they’re not quite as frequent, I hope we can create some new ones.
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Note: This posting also appears on my Happy Bachelor blog.
To say live music is an integral part of my life is an understatement. Going to concerts is so much a part of my lifestyle that I have a running joke on Facebook, “I don’t go to enough concerts,” a joke I make every time I’m at a show, which is nearly every weekend. Thanks to COVID-19, this can’t happen now. But, to paraphrase the Grateful Dead, the music never stops. One day, almost on a whim, I picked up an $80 acoustic guitar from a pawn shop near me. I had played on and off since I was sixteen, but I never really took it seriously. That casual relationship resumed once I brought it to the office: I played it a few times, but ultimately, I stashed it in a corner of my office and forgot all about it. When I found out we would be working remotely, something possessed me to take the guitar home. One evening, after getting done to work, I just felt the urge to play Phish’s “Waste,” a song I had committed to memory several years earlier. I had been witnessing the struggles of my loved ones on Facebook, so I posted a video of my performance. I was astonished by the number of “likes” I received. So I vowed to post a new song every week to entertain my Facebook friends. I started out with some other songs I had committed to memory: “Norwegian Wood,” “Blowing in the Wind,” and “Uncle John’s Band.” For me, these were fairly easy to relearn. Then, I decided to expand my comfort zone with more complex tunes, like Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times.” Not easy, but I accomplished it. After teaching myself a few songs, and a few new chords that went them, I decided to play for a purpose. While I’m childfree by choice, I couldn’t help but feel empathy for those parents trying to homeschool their children. I always struggled with math, so I can’t even comprehend trying to help someone in that subject, even in basic arithmetic. So I learned Jimmy Buffet’s “Math Sucks” to help soothe the frustrations of those parents struggling with math. Ever since she saw Bohemian Rhapsody, my mother has been obsessed with Queen. I give all due respect to them as musicians, and I like some of their songs, but I’ve never been enough of a fan to pay money for their music. But I decided to learn “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” as a Mother’s Day present to her, which I’ll surprise her with on Mother’s Day. One thing I’ve learned in my relationship with my guitar is that perfection is the enemy of progress. If I were going to be a rock star, it would’ve happened already, so if I simplify some chords or change a lyric or two, it doesn’t matter. The only people listening are my friends, and they won’t (or shouldn’t) judge. So why not loosen up and have some fun with it? Writer’s Note: I wrote movie reviews for my junior high school newspaper, as well as for a website while in my early 30s, the name of I can’t quite recall. The creator sent me $25 as a thank-you. Since concerts aren’t happening, I thought I’d dust off my movie reviewing skills, as I am a film buff in addition to being a concert hound.
I like Kiss enough to have their Very Best of compilation on my iTunes, but not enough to pay money to see them live. Still, I chomped at the bit to see Detroit Rock City back in the summer of ’99. I had just seen my first Phish show that July and had become obsessed with the foursome from Vermont. Knowing it was about four teenagers trying to get to a show, I could identify, and the movie filled my expectations. Nearly twenty-one years later, I own the DVD, and I’ve seen it about a dozen times. As I watched it last Saturday night during our quarantine, I realized why I liked the movie so much. From a film criticism standpoint, it doesn’t exactly meet the criteria of master cinema. The story’s predictable, the character arcs aren’t that deep, and the movie is cheesy overall. But I loved it just the same precisely because the concertgoer in me can identify with that primal desire to do what it takes to get to the show at all costs. The makers also understand the teenage mindset around concertgoing (well, around any visceral desire, really), which is that the world will end if you don’t get to that concert TONIGHT. The story is pretty simple. In 1978 Cleveland, four teenagers who comprise a Kiss cover band, after having had their concert tickets set on fire by the hyper-religious mother of one of their members, head up to Detroit on a mission to get tickets for that big Kiss concert. Of note: they actually SOUND like a high school rock band, not some professional musicians brought on by the studio executives. The movie has a very high-energy feel to it, and while I wouldn’t describe it as a character study, all four kids have some problems they’re facing, and the trip works as a sort of applied emergency therapy on them. Jam (Sam Huntington) has a domineering mother, who’s responsible for the act of arson that necessitates these kids needing to scramble for tickets in the first place. Hawk (Edward Furlong of Terminator 2), their lead singer and de facto group leader, has a bad case of stage fright. Trip (James DeBello) is the Jeff Spicoli of the band and is on a road to nowhere. Lex (Giuseppe Andrews) is the group’s voice of reason and has the least developed character arc; his distinguishing character feature is that he hates dogs, a fear he has to overcome in order to recover his Mom’s car, which has been stolen in Detroit after the kids have commandeered it for their trip. They have some authentic teenage stoner banter and fun adventures in their quest for the tickets, including run-ins with car thieves, religious zealots, and disco kids. The movie has a zany energy, which it spices up with a soundtrack of wall-to-wall Kiss tunes, along with some other 70s rock staples from groups like Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult, and the Runaways. We don’t get to hear the film’s eponymous song until the very end. While we know the story is predictable, I identified with the film on a deep level, precisely because I’m as devoted to shows as these kids are, even as a 41-year-old English professor. Even during my fifteenth or so viewing, when I knew quite well where the movie was headed, my heart sunk and my eyes nearly teared up when Jam’s mother used the kids’ much-treasured tickets to light a cigarette. She then sends him up to a boarding school as a rehabilitative measure from “the Devil’s music.” After his bandmates break him out, they head to Detroit, and they’re mystified by all the Kiss fans lining the streets outside of Cobo Hall. The look on their faces suggests a feeling of “this is the best thing ever.” That, reader, is how I feel every time I go to Madison Square Garden and see hordes of Phish fans walking up and down Seventh Avenue. The movie gets that feeling, which is why it’s been in my DVD collection and why I rewatch it about once a year or so. |
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February 2024
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