back to the rock and roll life May 12, 2024
(posted from my phone)
it was more than a little irony that the place we chose to
go see rock and roll last night was within a few footsteps of one of the
regular gigs the band I work for played back in the early 1980s
we did not go there for my birthday although it was a kind
of celebration and the band was a rolling Stones bar band too many members but
more than qualified to play the music we were hearing
I forgot just how exhausting the rock and roll life
especially after having work earlier in the day when I had to cover an event
for the newspaper
nothing much really has changed except that the groupies
that's hung around the band we're all old like us and overweight and yet it did
not stop them from having a great time or for the band to appreciate their
loyalty
the bands that I played for had similar fans although they ceased
playing many many years ago.
So the social scene that became such a big part of our life
back in the 1970s and early '80s no longer exist and so watching these people
and even interacting with some of them was a blast from the past
the fact that it was the eve of my birthday only added to
the irony that somehow I had managed to survive when many of those who I shared
the stage with when I was younger have not-- almost all of whom had perished due to some
drug or alcohol issue
the band of course filled the tiny stage so that they were
practically falling off.
In the corner of the room there were so many guitars, the
saxophone and drums they were unable to quite fit and at times the lead singer --who
did indeed act and look a little like Mick Jagger-- had to step off the stage to do his routine
Some of the songs were very familiar from our days on stage
although Paulie was overall a better lead singer than this one was only Paulie
didn't go through the motions and this guy seemed to have watched too many Rolling
Stone videos so that everything he did was just a little orchestrated and maybe
pretentious but then that was what Mick Jagger has always been about, a kind of
theater of the stage and so it just added to the flavor
we nearly hit three women trying to get into the bar when I
tried to cross the busy street to find parking and then when we got to the door
we were greeted by a guy from Kearney and his crew who apparently had also
heard that the Rolling Stone band was playing and wanted to see them
He interacted with us for most of the night off and on
although the women he was with took to the dance floor and became part of this
non-stop adoration society and for doing all those things I remember back when
the band played back in the Red Baron in cedar Grove years and years and years
ago
As with many of these scenes they were two distinct groups
those of us who were too old to actually be standing all night the way we would
be at one of the Asbury Park been his such as The Stone Pony and we took over
the tables while the pickup scene was very active at the long oval bar where
pretty women and pretty men interacted ignoring the band
there was a cover charge to get in but it was more than we
had expected from the website and so I had to eventually use a credit card to
pay for the drinks
we settled into one of the tables and spent the whole first
set there watching the band and also the audience as I ordered beer and we
waited for the band to come on which eventually it did and then never stopped
Apparently they were going to play more than one set but the
first set was so long I was nearly falling asleep from the beer and the overwork
during the day that we had to leave
But outside the neighborhood had largely remained unchanged,
the names of businesses altered even the club where we played still existed as
a building but not at his previous use when we played there two doors down from
the bar it was a strip club and very much like the Hamburg scene with the
Beatles where when the girls went off the band came on and often the crowd
we're screaming for the girls even as the band played
we got home before midnight even though the band had started
late so we didn't turn into pumpkins or some such although this morning my
birthday morning I am exhausted from the whole thing and wonder if we will do
it again and we probably will since it's such a comfortable venue
but more importantly it sort of brought back everything that
I missed when my band ceased to play and that is an important thing and a
wonderful birthday present
to have survived this long and still have that music mean
something it's important even though in the end who knows what will happen in 5
or 10 years or even next week but the music is the music and it will always
remain in my heart and as I watched these performers I saw those performers
from years ago all of them still quite alive in my memory and all of them still
is vibrant this this music was their music and I appreciate it the present even
if nobody knew it was my birthday but us
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