Concerts Remembered

Do you remember all of the rock concerts you have attended in your lifetime?  Maybe the upcoming New Year’s Eve is a reminder of one you attended on a prior New Year’s Eve years ago.  Or maybe you recollect a special concert that was the first date you had with your now current spouse.

Especially now, if you are a senior citizen like me, do you remember the ones you went to in high school or college?  I recently had an occasion to think back to the ones I had attended.  And unfortunately, unlike the words from the Classics IV song, Traces, I did not save the “tickets torn in half” so I could have easily identify which ones.

But what prompted my desire to recall these?  Well in August, my two sisters drove over for the weekend.  On one of the weekend nights, we watched the first episode of the 2-part HBO documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes.  If you are a Billy Joel fan and have not seen it, I would highly recommend it to you as you will find yourself signing along with all of his well-known songs, learning the personal history of the lyrics, while seeing photos and vintage film footage of his life.

So, before I tell you why seeing this documentary caused me to want to recall them, I need to tell you my memories first.

My earliest memory of attending a rock concert was sometime in the 1970s.  I might have been in high school or college but it was my girlfriend at the time that wanted me to take her to the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer concert in Memphis.  At the time, Memphis had only two large music venues, the Midsouth Coliseum in midtown and the Auditorium North Hall in downtown.  The ELP concert was at the Coliseum, a round building with circular seating arrangements that as my young son once commented, looks like a large drum.  I was not familiar with their music and the only song I recognized was my girlfriend’s favorite, Lucky Man.  Considering this was my first concert, it made me recognize I should not attend another concert unless I knew and liked the band’s music.

In college, I had a chance to do just that at two out of town venues one being the Electric Light Orchestra and another the Atlanta Rhythm Section both performances in Mississippi.

In high school, I began listening to Todd Rundgren when his album, Something, Anything, came out.  So again, while I was in college, he toured Memphis, and I attended.  This time it was at the downtown venue, a much more suitable building for a concert.  I recall it being a very enjoyable concert and thoroughly enjoyed my favorite song of his at the time, Hello It’s Me.

I got married just a year and a half out of college and less than two years later, we had our first child which meant we would not likely be attending any other concerts for a while.

The next concert I can recall was when my daughter was about 10 years old.

For my birthday, she bought us tickets to attend the Yanni concert also in downtown Memphis.  She even took us out to dinner before the concert.  I had really gotten into New Age music at the time and Yanni was one of my favorite New Age musicians.  It was a really great concert made even more special that my daughter had paid for the entire night as a gift to me.

After my brother moved to a small town south of Atlanta, GA, he introduced my wife and me to the music of the Indigo Girls.  When they came to Memphis for a concert, my wife and I decided to go as we had bought a number of their CDs and loved many of their songs.  It was at an open-air theatre in downtown on what is known as Mud Island and it was a very pleasant night.  I obviously was very naïve at the time about them, so I was quite shocked when I saw women near the front throwing their bras onto the stage.  I wondered if they had written their telephone numbers or hotel room numbers somewhere on the undergarment for some possible post-concert activities.

My favorite concert of all time was when the Beach Boys came to Memphis.  I was very familiar with their music and knew many of their songs.  The concert was made even better as the warm up band was America, another of my favorite bands at the time.  It was an afternoon concert at that Mud Island venue.  My sister and her family were in town at the time and so many of us went together.  I can recall fond memories of my young kids dancing gleefully to the music.

And while my eldest sister lived in Knoxville, TN, she was given two tickets to see Art Garfunkel. Although separated now, Simon and Garfunkel were another of my favorite bands in the 1980s and so I readily agreed to drive up to go with my sister.  After a lovely dinner by the river, we made our way the short distance to the venue.  Garfunkel sang all of their popular songs, but the highlight was when his young son, a curly headed redhead bounded out onto the stage singing “Feelin Groovey!”

Beyond these few concerts, I had just a very vague memory of one more.  And it was seeing the documentary that brought it all back.

Billy Joel became another of my favorite musicians with the release of Piano Man.  I bought many more of his albums and CDs after that.  In 1977 while I was still in college, he came to Memphis for a concert at a new downtown venue.  At the time, I did not have a girlfriend and so rather than going alone, I asked my eldest sister if she wanted to go with me which she did.

After we watched that documentary episode, I asked my sister if she remembered going to the concert with me but she did not.  I said watching the show reminded me of that.  And I could even tell her what night the concert was.  It was a Sunday night and the reason I remember that is when he sang the first lyric of Piano Man, “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday,” he substituted “It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday.”

Since that concert, I have become very familiar with many of his songs and love many of them.  I have always loved piano music (Elton John is another of my favorites).  And I’m sure it was that Piano Man album that got me started down the road of enjoying his music.

As the four of us watched that episode together, there was a lot of singing along.  But beyond the great music, it was especially enjoyable to learn how many of the song’s lyrics came from events in his life.  And it was particularly enlightening to learn how quickly he could turn out some of his songs.

Billy Joel is a truly talented musician, and he just came back to Memphis for another concert this year, which having now seen the documentary and seeing what a lively performer he is, I am very sorry I missed.