You’re Never Too Old to Rock and Roll

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Earlier this week I had the privilege of attending one of the largest concerts ever to hit Northern Michigan, and by largest I actually mean oldest.  The show took place at the Northwestern Michigan Fairgrounds as part of the National Cherry Festival and featured such ancient groups as Bad Company, Styx, and let’s not forget Billy Squier!  Throughout the course of the night, I picked up on some trends that I originally thought I might be able to weave into a humorous column of some sort.  These are my stories…

When you’ve been to as many concerts as I have, you really start to feel like you know the crowd.  You’re able to relate with the other ticket holders on another level; some might call it a Zen-like experience.  While at this latest concert, however, I felt a disturbance in the force, if you will, as if there were some people present whom I couldn’t relate with.  We were there for different reasons, mine being the music and entertainment, while they had other reasons for showing up.  Some ended up being quite funny, while others were just plain sad, but nevertheless I’ve taken the time to break them down into categories for you, the reader, in hopes that you will walk away with a greater appreciation for the live music experience.  Either that or a good laugh, whichever works for you!  Here are the new groups that I came up with:

1. The ‘I Don’t Really Want to Be Here’ Group – I saw this a lot that night, mainly in the form of family outings.  You know how it goes: Dad really wants to see a rock concert, but he knows damn well that his wife would never let him go, unless he pitches the idea as a family outing!  “Come on, it’ll be fun!  We’ll bring the kids, pack a nice picnic lunch, they’ll love it!”  Two hours into the show, the kids are crouched in their seats with their hands clamped over their ears, that is if they haven’t started screaming yet.  I actually witnessed one young girl doing her nails, all while Styx was blasting out Come Sail Away not twenty feet away!  Bored out of their minds, but Dad doesn’t care, and since the music is so loud, he doesn’t have to hear their mother’s lecture until the next day!  I’ve seen this one with girlfriends and wives, too, but be careful guys!  If she’s not happy now, there’s a good chance you could be paying for it later on tonight, if you know what I mean…

2. The ‘Drunken Annoyance’ Group – We’ve all experienced these folks before!  These are the people who come back to their seats with two huge glasses of beer after having gone through another two waiting in line, each, and then want to talk to you about what they’ve missed!  “Well, you’ve been drunk the entire night, so you’ve basically missed just about everything, my friend!  Is that the Beer Man I hear calling you???”  Luckily, this particular venue doesn’t allow alcohol to leave the beer tent, so I think those holding the seats around us were only actually present for maybe fifteen minutes tops and never all at the same time.  Honestly, I don’t understand the point of having such incredibly awesome seats if you’re going to spend the entire night in the beer tent, but if it means that I get an extra seat to set my drink on, bottoms up!

3. The ‘Awesome Lesbian’ Group – Ok, they didn’t really bother me, but they’re definitely worth a mention for this particular show!  This entire genre of music was born in a time when people were both very rebellious and at the same time very confused, so of course, people have a little too much to drink and, well, things happen.  Several couples were situated within my view that night, along with a great band cranking out the rock ‘n roll, so let’s just say that if someone could’ve found a way to get a pizza delivered to the 7^th row, I could’ve died a happy man…

4. The ‘Over the Hill and Then Some’ Group – I thought I’d seen my share of old folks when I saw the Beach Boys and CCR a few years back, but that was nothing compared to this show!  Needless to say, I respect these guys because hey, that’ll be me in about fifty years!  They’re slow, they can’t hear very well, but they’re still out there enjoying themselves and I think that’s pretty cool.  It was also a bit scary watching somebody’s Grandpa getting’ jiggy with his lady during the slower numbers, but hey, you only live once.

5. The ‘We Were Born About Fifteen Years Too Late’ Group –Well, sometimes I think that I belong in this group because I love so much of the music that came from this period, and it’s a hell of a lot better than most of the stuff on the air now!  It seems that all the decent bands from years gone by are just finishing up theirretirement tours as we speak and it won’t be too long before the modern groups begin to take their places as the great bands of the time.  Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll come across some talent before then…

Of course, if I had been born in the sixties, I’d probably be a burnt-out guidance counselor by now who takes his kids to rock concerts on the weekends when he should be doing something that they want to do, like sitting in a hot, aluminum rowboat for an entire afternoon while he fishes or playing catch in the backyard when they’d much rather be inside playing video games.  I’d be afraid of the Internet, I’d only find happiness in such activities as cutting the grass and working in the garage, but at least I’d have the music.  Like the pop-goddess Madonna once said during the conical-hooter stage of her life, “It has always been about the music.”