Some sage advice from someone who once had a chance to see Billy Joel in concert in Scranton and turned down the offer, here is the story. Let’s rewind to the fall of 1977 and Just the Way You Are is climbing the pop charts. I liked the song, was just getting into some other Billy Joel music when I was asked if I wanted to see him at the University of Scranton. You may not remember this but Billy Joel was a fixture in Scranton playing at least one concert a year in the Electric City in the 70’s. Armed with this knowledge, I replied: Thanks but I will wait until next year and see him then. Well, The Stranger turns out to be Billy Joel’s breakout album, spends six weeks at #2 in album chart sales…to this day The Stranger is still Billy Joel’s best selling album and needless to say he never returned to Scranton in 1978. So learn from my mistake and go to the show, you never know what the future holds.

If you’re under the age of 35 this will read like your great Aunt Katherine’s stories about the Great Depression, or your Uncle Howards tales of life during the Second World War. The sad thing is, if you’re 35 I’m not that much older than you are.  I’m going to play advocate.  Not for a venue or a band, but for an event.  August 8 at the Toyota Pavilion at Montage you can see Creed.  Tickets are $10 & $20.  It’s what the summer is all about.   This isn’t a Creed article, although I like the band.  While I have most of their discs they are the spoils of perks from label people who said “take it home and tell me what you think.”  I’m stoked about this show.   Actually I’m stoked about what the show represents: quality rock ‘n roll on a summer’s night that everyone can afford. 

I grew up outside of Philadelphia, but I went to school at Wyoming Seminary.  It gave me a rare dual citizenship that most high school students don’t experience.  Periodically there would be a show at the Kingston Armory (I saw the Doobie Brothers there in 78) or the Paramount before it became the F.M. Kirby Center.  In Scranton the Irem Temple would occasionally host a show.  There were some good shows at the Broome County Arena if you wanted to drive.     When the 80s came the Station (now Market Street ) brought some great shows to town.  I saw the Ramones there, also the Band, Greg Kihn, Simon Townshend, Leon Russell,  and Poco to name a few.  Those nights again were events. 

Looking back summer in the City of Brotherly Love in the late 70s and 80s proved to be a great time and place to be young.  With Basketball and hockey season long over the Spectrum was booked almost continuously all summer long.  There was also the Civic Center, the Tower(still one of the greatest rock ‘n roll venues on the planet), the TLA was coming into its own.  At the Empire Rock Room in the Northeast you could hear Robert Hazard and the Heroes or the Hooters.  There was always a punk band at the Hot Club.  Names who signed the bathroom wall included Chucky and Delbert Africa of the infamous MOVE organization.  I doubt they were ever there, but it added to the environment.  I saw Johnny Thunders there.  Grendel’s lair on South street, Stars on Second & Bainbridge.  In 1981 U2 played both the Bijou Café and Ripley’s Music Hall.  The cover was $4.00.  On a hot August night in 11979 I saw Scorpions, AC/DC and Ted Nugent for an $8.00 ticket including the ticketmaster fee.

My friends and I would work during the day and listen to the cassettes, and then drove into the city at night to see the band.  Plans were usually spontaneous and tickets were often bought at the door. You could do that back then because the show was announced only 2 or three weeks before the gig.   If you paid a scalper $10 you got ripped off. 

The best part was you didn’t have to pick and choose which shows you saw because of price.  You could see everyone.  I had no idea who Peter Himmelman was when my buddy Penn suggested I find a date and go with him and his girl.  Penn got a hot tip from his girlfriend’s sister that based on his album Himmelman was a can’t miss event.  When was the last time you bought a pair of tickets on the recommendation of a friend’s girlfriend’s older sister?  25 years ago you could do that.  A concert cost little more than a movie.  My date was a girl I met at lunch.  We ended up dating the rest of the summer until we went away to different schools.  The show was THAT good.  By the way if you ever get a chance to see Peter Himmelman I guarantee you’ll email me and write “Fontaine how can anyone be this good and no one’s ever heard of him?!”  I’ll tell you it’s an unusual 19 year old who has a similar experience today as the price of concert tickets are almost prohibitive. 

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have a song “Money Becomes King.”  It’s about how going to a show has changed over the years.  It’s my youth in a song.  August 8 there’s a concert in town.  A quality band at a comfortable venue at a reasonable price, just barely more than a movie.  Buy a ticket and go.  Make the statement to promoters everywhere that in NEPA we’ll support quality shows at a reasonable price.  Buy a ticket and let yourself again feel the thrill of something new on a whim.

LF

Click here to discover Peter Himmelman

The Last, and worst, day of my London vacation….

So we arrive at Heathrow terminal 4 after mistakenly travelling to terminal 1, 2, and 3. Our boarding pass didn’t say which terminal we should go to. Our flight was due to depart at 4:20, we arrived at 3:24.  The ticket agent immediately tore up our boarding passes and said we couldn’t board the flight since it was less than an hour before departure.  I said I hoped I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel on our final car ride home, and she replied, “Even if I could let you board your original flight I wouldn’t, now.  You should have known which terminal you were flying out of since it was on your ticket” (although she said, “tickeet”).  Not interested that we had very limited internet access and never really saw our “tickeet”.

We were then shuffled off to another ticket agent whose name tag read merely “Di”. She told us there was no other way for us to get home except to pay a $500 ticket change fee.  I told her I had already paid such a change fee once, back in April, when the kid’s passport didn’t arrive in time. I’ll admit it, I began to cry, that’s when Di stated she did not want to take such abuse and called over some supervisor type. She had the same annoyed and unhelpful attitude.

We were then shuffled off to another ticket agent.  I decided I would let my son handle this transaction since my emotional state was apparently annoying to the staff.  No dice, I was required to stand before this agent, to identfy myself and hand over my credit card.  She told us we would now be flying into JFK, not Newark. I asked about flying standby, to which she replied, “Don’t take your bad day out on me” and said there was no possibility of standby and the change would cost me $572.  By this time I was so upset I couldn’t really speak, and I didn’t catch her name.  I went to sit down on a baggage scale.

At this point she tells my son to please not swear.  He actually hadn’t….This slip actually made me aware, on further reflection, that these agents were actually trying to generate an emotional reaction that would justify their bad behavior.

Another staff member named Shawna saw me crying and, seeming quite concerned, asked if I was OK.  I explained my problem, she went over to the ticket counter, and never spoke to me again.  However she did strike up a conversation with a nearby sky cap, about 4 feet away from me, that both of them found extremely hilarious.

Yes, the airlines are hurting.  They will only have a $2.5 billion profit this year (that’s all of them, not just Virgin, but still…)  What a way to ruin what was a great vacation.

Don’t get me wrong – I love technology. It lets us do things we never thought we could do and it lets us get them done quicker, but, I love this idea John Mellencamp had about his new album.

He also has a unique greatest hits package coming on June 15th.

The old Rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end — drank his ale too light.
Death’s head belt buckle — yesterday’s dreams —
the transport café prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams
in his post-war-babe gloom.

Jethro Tull – Too Old To Rock ‘n Roll: Too Young To Die

Ian Anderson wrote these words as he approached his 30^th birthday.  Hippies in the US and Mods and Rockers in the UK, they were the post war generation who wanted change but weren’t sure how to get it.   Now Anderson found himself about to be enshrined in the club he rebelled against – 30!  Chuck Berry was 32 when he crowned himself Johnny B. Goode yet that fact was lost on this new generation.  Bo Diddley was on the cusp of 30 when he declared “I’m am man” and asked “Who Do You Love?” He was 32 and when he released “Mona.”  Bill Haley was staring down the barrel of 30 when he released “Rock Around the Clock.”  The dirty truth is teenagers were shaking it to old men in their 30’s ever since Alan Freed coined the phrase “Rock ‘n Roll.” 

We all survived that 30 threshold, But in the 80’s came the dreaded 40.  The Icons from the 60s who were still making records: Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia, were all turning 40 and the question was raised again: How old is too old?  We got some relief when Don Henley went back to his summer haunt and found the “deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.”  Could it be we could have careers, be responsible and still rock ‘n roll?  The Grateful Dead made further speculation moot.  “I will get by, I will survive.”  Jerry passed on a few years later.  No one will deny it was the bitter fruit of a lifestyle that no doubt shaved substantial time off the back end of his life. 

Thank goodness for the Rolling Stones releasing Voodoo Lounge because it trampled down the “50” argument before it began.  Grunge was fading into “alternative” (that’s what happens when you label your music, by the way.  You have to keep relabeling the box). The Who greeted the new millennium still a much coveted concert ticket. 

In the dawn of the second decade of the 21^st century everyone’s too old.  Depending on the blog/facebook page you read it seems The Who and the Rolling Stones embarrassed themselves at their Superbowl halftime gigs.  Really?  I thought they looked pretty good in the most trying of situations.  The sound check is the night before, then the stage is disassembled only to be hurried together in 8 minutes and you play.  It’s never the same as it was the previous night.  Would Mick have been easier to accept if he pranced in a $2K business suit instead of spandex?  If Pete ditched the leather jacket for Armani would it have gone over better? 

John Gotti said “In the end all we have is memories.”  I guess that’s never truer than in Rock ‘n Roll.  In the end you have to fight you’re fans’ memories. If you saw The Who in ’78 does that mean every time you see them it must be 1978 all over again?  Even if you’re closer to 50 than 20?  The only band I know to pull off that trick is Kiss.  Taking the makeup off in the 80;s was their second best idea.  The best idea was putting it back on.  They’ve become a tribute band to themselves, playing the same notes and doing the same shtick for 35 years.  I’m not knocking it, it’s a quality show.  For some it will be one of the biggest nights of their summer.  Still, if you watch Gene Simmons’ reality show he’ll take you into his plastic surgeons office before the tuck.  So why isn’t he over the hill? Kabuki makeup?  If the band performed without the 7” heels and the leather would they seem silly singing “I wanna rock ‘n roll all night and party every day?” 

I’ll leave you with one final point.  I’ve included a link to the Scorpions Raised on Rock video.  The Scorpions for those not up on their history came together in 1965.  Three years after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, a year after The Who.  The first time I saw them was in 1979, their first US tour (it took them 13 years to be an overnight sensation in the US).  The were the first act on a bill with AC/DC and Ted Nugent.  By the way the ticket was $8 including the ticketmaster fee (there’s a memory I miss, the $8 ticket).  They worked and I thought they were quality, though the never became “my band.”  I like some of their things, though I really never warmed up to much of it.  The song fits their sound for the past 30 years and the video is a nice retrospect of their career from bigger than life stages to pick guitars and 80s fashion.  I think it’s a great statement: HEY! WE CAN STILL DO IT AND (bleep) YOU IF YOU SAY WE CAN’T! 

I’d really like to know what you think.  And I’ll post some of the best responses. 

LF

What is it about summer time songs that just sound different from other hits the rest of the year? Maybe it’s the fact they remind you of the good times that summer usually brings with it like fun out doors, parties, relaxing by the water. About ten years ago or so on a vacation down south, I fell in love with Jimmy Buffet’s Barometer Soup album. If you have never heard it, do yourself a favor and listen to the title track, from the steel drums to the fun upbeat sound, it is one of those perfect summer songs that belongs on a I-Pod next to your beer, book and the pool.