For me and my buds, the first concert we attended was at the Nassau Coliseum, home of the New York Islanders, New York Nets, Professional Wrestling, and "Rungling Bros. and Farnum and Daily Circus". (They couldn't afford the real deal, they were over at the "Garden")
What a structure!My first show, attended with my friends Rob Greenbaum, Scott Erb, Jimmy Barberine, and the legendary Steve "Toad" Ward was the infamous Jethro Tull/U.K. show from the epic "Storm Watch" tour of 1978. The tour was made infamous by the fact that the day before "Tull" was supposed to play the Coliseum, Ian Anderson, famed "Tull" front-man, was hit in the eye by the thorn of a wayward rose. (Snot running down his nose...indeed!) However, the man who could blow a flute melodically on one leg returned no worse for wear, (Other than his scratched cornea) and put on a hell of a show. In one of those, "This would never happen today moments", we attended this concert at the tender age of 14, fall of our freshman year in High School. I wonder how many parents today would let their 14 year olds go to a concert 30 minutes away to see a "Progressive Rock" show on a school night, no less?no less?
I was lucky, I was one of those guys who had a cool older brother, my brother David, and he drove us to the show. (I won't say exactly why he was cool, but trust me) He dropped us off near the parking lot, and may have even stopped the car while we got out, but who can say. The tickets were all of $15, but we were seeing the immortal Jethro Tull! (And the less than legendary "U.K.", whose front man, John Wetton would go on to be the lead singer of "Asia" and their drummer Terry Bosio who played for Frank Zappa and "Missing Persons" and their keyboardist and electric violinist, whose name escapes me, but I think I saw him painting the TappenZee Bridge recently) The first thing I remember doing was looking to buy a concert T-shirt, like all the cool kids had in school.
Guess who gets to hang out at the handball courts now...Bitches!?
My glory however was short lived. (And by short lived I mean, non-existent) The first time my mother washed and dried it, the t-shirt shrunk down to a concert "bandana" and my glory days at the handball courts evaporated before my watery eyes.
The concert was not without its eye opening learning experiences. We went into the bathroom and saw one guy throwing up in the sink. Another "dude" offered us "acid", which we politely declined. This was the way rock concerts used to be, filled with drug pushing and vomit, and that was just the musicians!
My next show was by far my least favorite concert, "The Greatful Dead" I was not now, nor have I ever been a communist...or a "dead head". But I have associated with some. (Dead-heads, not Communists) The concert seemed to start without warning and end without reason. They played what seemed like a 4 hour drum solo that sounded like they had never played the drums before, but wanted to see what they sounded like. There were interesting looking people dancing in the isles without reason or cause (or rhythm). They looked something like this:
Other than the music, the other lowlight of the night was that I put an upside down open beer in my pocket....for medicinal purposes.
My favorite concert event was The Who's "Final" concert tour in 1982. A bunch of us from E-1 Moreland in Oswego sent in money for the show at the Carrier Dome in December of that year. The whole thing was a "luck of the draw' contest, and our seats could have literally been anywhere in the "Dome". We got the letter back a few weeks later telling us that we were 2nd row, right in front of John Entwhistle, "The Who's" awesome, bass player.
It was a good thing I saw them when I did, they hung it up after this, with only maybe a few thousand shows since.
Interestingly, we almost didn't live to see the show. That very same night, in the dining hall of Mackin' Complex, after Tom "Hosebag" Murphy set the dining hall record by eating a 100 chicken wings, we drove off to Syracuse in the ice and snow. We missed the exit, and "the Rat", Greg Rathjen, negotiated an illegal u-turn on 481 as oncoming highway traffic descended upon us. The tires of Chris Davie's Honda Civic spun on the icy road, and as I sat in the passenger seat watching my short life pass before my eyes, Tom Murphy moaned in regret over his heroic but ultimately flawed choice in sacrificing all to win a contest that was now leaving him in the unenviable position of probably having to shit his pants, either through fear or colon overload.
I fear now that the concert experience that so many of us grew up on is now long gone. My wife and I along with my brothers' and their wives went to see Crosby, Stills, and Nash at Jones Beach in the early 1990s. As the music played on, we noticed people strolling back and forth out of their seats going to the snack bar as if they were at a ball game. If Jim Morrison were really dead, he would have been rolling over in his grave.
Today, I fear all is lost. At the risk of offending friends and family, so many people I know now go to concerts with their kids. I'm trying to think what it would have been like to see "The Who" with Janet and Seymour. I'm thinking it would have gone down something like this:
Seymour: "So who are we seeing? Who? Who are we seeing"?
Me: "Funny Dad, yeah that's their name..can I get something to eat now"?
Janet: "Why is the one with the big nose jumping all over the place? Boy is he ugly!"
Seymour: "Is the drummer throwing up blood"?
Me: "Something small, maybe peanuts, Dad, you love peanuts!"
Janet: "The singer, the one with the curly hair, he keeps throwing his microphone around, how's he supposed to sing like that"?
Janet (again): "And now they're destroying their instruments. A real musician respects his instrument and doesn't destroy it, that's just silly". (This statement is actually a true one)
Janet (again): "Why didn't we go see that little Paul Simon, he's better. He's so short though, but I'll tell you what, he's pretty tall when he stands on his money!"
Me: "Ok, um forget the peanuts, just some Hemlock"!
Maybe I'm just stuck in the past. My oldest son likes "Hip-Hop". Maybe for ChristmasHanukahQuanzaa I'll take him to see a "Rap" concert. I'll have to find the right look for such an event. Perhaps this will do?
Mazel Tov....Boyeeeeee!
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