Things I Love About Summer: Part 2

Every year, a week or two after school has closed out for the summer, a vacant lot on what we will call the "main drag" of our little town and towns across the Midwest is filled with a traveling amusement park for the annual town festival.  There is something about these town festivals that I love even though I rarely attend them any longer.  

Growing up in Oswego, Illinois just outside of Chicago, we had Oswego Days later to be called Prairie
Fest where the main street of town turned into an outdoor shopping, eating, drinking, festival in the evenings and summer nights.  Music filled the streets of downtown with the municipal band playing in the park and later a rock and roll or country music band on the street near the sponsoring tavern.  Downtown shops put racks of clothes and tables of summer merchandise on the sidewalks, the fire station held some kind of water hose and bucket on a wire contest that I remember but had no idea what was happening other than a lot of water spraying all over.  The water brigade was welcome as it was normally sunny and hot.  I attended those festivals for years and years.  During my high school years, I participated in the annual Oswego Days parade as a Cub Scout and later marching in the band.  I sang solos and duets at Ice Cream socials during the festival, and I attended and rode the rides of the traveling amusement park in a field near the elementary school.  

Today, in the town I call home, we have the Good Neighbor Days renamed from the Cherry Festival after a tornado decimated the town in 2013.  It was a well intended name as it symbolized the unity of the community after the tornado, but people continue to call it the Cherry Fest confusing those who are not in the know.  It is kind of amusing and around our house we call it both names without blinking an eye.  

Even though I don't attend the festival any longer, it is still one of the things I love about summer.  My kids go the festival at night to hang out with friends and ride the rides, but the idea of festival has really changed over the years.  There isn't a parade any longer.  I don't see any bands or music on a schedule to attend.  There are the rides, a 5K run, and a pancake breakfast, but that is about it.  This is no shade on any committee or chamber of commerce, it reflects the society in which we live.  Has it been shaped by social media?  Maybe the COVID pandemic forever changed festivals, or maybe the national political divide has something to do with it.  Nevertheless, I still love the small town festivals despite the notable changes and lack of umph.  They are throwback to community and excitement for something good.  They are a throwback to neighborhoods and the community coming together for fun.  Perhaps they are a thing of the past, but who knows, maybe as the pandemic fades from memory and the political pendulum swings and maybe even the negativity and criticism that social media creates will settle, these little town festivals will continue to do what they are intended to do, bring communities together.  Maybe the bands will return to spread their music.  Maybe the parades with classic cars, fire trucks, and floats will return and people will be happy and excited.  

I think this is what I love about the small town festival.  It is hope for community.  It is hope to showcase the towns in which we live.  It is symbolic of our shared community and love of place.  For these things and more, it is one of the things I love about summer.  

Friday Favorites: Top 5 Concerts

I was asked to speak to the History of Rock class at our school to discuss a concert experience I had experienced.  I don't think the teacher, a good friend, had any idea how happy this made me as I love to talk about live music.  It got me thinking of all the concerts I had been to in my life.  I started by creating a list of as many of the concerts I could remember, and it became quite apparent which concert I would talk about.  But in the list making process, I thought it would be fun to create a top 5 concerts.  So here it is, with the top concert being the experience I would share with the class.  

5. The Kinks, Holiday Star Theater, Merriville, Indiana  1988

    My best friend in high school and I took made the trip to Merriville, Indiana to see The Kinks on a
Sunday night in 1988.  We enjoyed a powerful set from the Kinks, but we left something in that theather forever...a part of our hearing.  It was the loudest concert I have ever attended.  We couldn't talk to each other the entire way home, because nothing could be heard.  The next day at school we both experienced ringing in our ears.  Was it worth it?  At the time, absolutely it was worth it, check out the playlist of current songs and classics.  It was an amazing concert, but in hindsight, maybe some ear plugs would have been appropriate.  

4. The Eagles - Riverport Ampitheater, Maryland Heights, Missouri 1994

   

Any time you see a mega band like The Eagles, you are going to be in for a treat, because all of these band members went on to have incredibly successful solo careers.  At this concert, we weren't only treated to some of the best songs of The Eagles, but we got solo performances from Joe Walsh, Don Henley, and Glen Frey.  I will never hear Rocky Mountain Way in the same way when I hear it on the radio.  It was such a powerful performance.  The Eagles didn't disappoint with only one encore, they pounded out three encoure performances finishing with Take it Easy.  

3. Dave Matthews Band - Farm Aid, New World Music Theater, Tinley Park, Illinois 1997

    I have seen the Dave Matthews Band three times (once at FarmAid) and every time (not including Farm Aid) the audio mixing was disappointing.  I mean, disappointing to the point of almost leaving during one of the concerts.  The main guitar was so high on some songs that the bass and drums were almost not heard from where we were sitting.  But, Dave Matthews and band knocked it out of the park at their brief performance at Farm Aid.  I have no idea why this performance, mixing-wise, was so much better than the others, but I am thankful it was, because it makes it my third favorite concert experience. 

2. John Mellencamp - Rosemont Theater, Rosemont, Illinois 1997

     John Cougar Mellencamp puts on incredible shows with hard rocking music.  It is clear that he was a rocker growing up and living out his dream in this show.  It was a raucous concert with loud rock and roll with Scarecrow, Pink Houses, Cherry Bomb and he kicked off the encoure with R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A!  There was only one respite in the entire concert when he played Jackie Brown and concluded with

Check It Out which we all needed to come back to Earth after this non-stop musical experience.  

1. The Grateful Dead - Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin  1989

    I have my brother to thank for taking a risk on bringing me along for the ride of a Grateful Dead concert experience.  I am still amazed that I was able to see the Grateful Dead live in 1989 in Wisconsin.  When I think about the music of this concert, I will never forget the opening cords of the first song, Hell in Bucket, but the rest of the concert resonates in my head as just a Grateful Dead sound.  I don't have any particular memories of any other song except for Mexicali Blues in the first set.  Besides the musical experience, the Deadheads left quite an impression on me as I remember in the "market" area one man selling jars of absolutely nothing for ten dollars.  How could I forget the man skipping through the crowd tossing out Fruit Stripes gum to all of us.  This entire experience along with the iconic band and Jerry Garcia make it my number one concert experience.  

How about you?  What are your top concert experiences?  I could easily finish out a top 10, so let me know if you would like to see that, but I definitely would like to see your top shows and maybe even your favorite places to see a live show.  Leave a comment here or on Twitter and tag me @draftline

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight's musical guest...

 "Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band" or add any other famous musical guest.  I look forward to those words on Saturday nights.  Saturday Night Live has been a staple on NBC for the entire memory of my life.  Early memories of SNL include Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, and many others from the original cast, and I remember  Rosanna Danna, Mr. Bill, "Cheezburgas," and the Samauri.  But once I hit my teen years in the mid-80's, I came to look forward to a special segment of Saturday Night Live, the two performances of each episode's musical guest.  My love of music comes from many sources, but one that still resonates with me is the musical guest performances on SNL.  

SNL has introduced me to many artists on the show like The Cars, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, Living Colour, and Sinead O'Connor or more recently Greta Van Fleet and Dua Lipa.  The SNL musical performances give us a peek into performances of some of the greats like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Prince, R.E.M, Lenny Kravitz, and so many more.  Most recently, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band gave a performance on the famed stage as it was decked out in lights and wreaths for the Christmas of 2020.   To see Bruce and the band live is a bucket list item for me, but SNL brought the performance right into my living room.  

What is it about the SNL musical performances that jolt me with energy, comfort me with joy, and make me feel like everything is cool?  The energy is easy, it's music!  Not just any music, but the best music in the world.  Look at those bands and artists mentioned above.  Just do a search for "SNL Musical Performances" and you will find dozens maybe hundreds of websites that discuss top 10 artists and top 10 performances on SNL.  In general, music moves deep down inside of me and while I will listen to just about any music, live music moves me most.  Of course, live in the terms of being in the audience while the music is created is the pinnacle, but any live performance is special whether you are seeing it live on the television or recorded live.  When the music is live it isn't just listening to a song, it is experiencing the music itself, hearing things you don't hear on a recording like a spontaneous cheer of the crowd at a certain lyric or heavy beat or something in the performance.  The visual performance is also part of the experience.  Seeing the band, the artist, the crew along with lights and video effects or just the stage dressing adds to the appreciation of the music and performance overall and brings energy along with it. 

The Saturday Night Live stage is legendary in my mind, and I think it is what brings me comfort while watching.  We have watched artists perform from that stage for decades.  I can close my eyes and see different performances that have taken place there.  They are like ghosts of the past that bring greatness to those who will perform this week, next season, or seasons to come in the future.  My favorite view of the stage comes at Christmas time when the stage is decked out for the holidays like it was for the recent Springsteen performance.  Such a warm feeling that brings comfort to me and a clear sense of nostalgia not only for the holidays but for the comfort that SNL and the musical performances will be there every year.  

Everything is cool.  SNL has always been a feature of the weekend.  When I was a kid, it was the excitement of staying up late with my older brother and sister laughing when they laughed and checking out the new tunes hearing some of the songs of artists my brother played on his record player.  In college, we would wait to go out until we saw the musical performance.  SNL was the gateway to the night.  As an adult, it is a different kind of gateway to the weekend.  It is time to start thinking about what the next week will start to look like.  The musical guest performance may be the last time in the weekend where I can release myself to something like a song or a message or a bizarre performance.  It is late, time to let the weekend energy burn off into some laughs and then an unforgettable meaningful performance.  Everything is cool for this hour and a half.  

The performance that inspired me to dig into these thoughts was the recent episode that I mentioned above.  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band delivered a strong message in the performance of these two songs.   It is a celebration of life and a recognition that those who have gone before us are there waiting for us.  In Ghosts he sings, "I make my vows to those who've come before, turn up the volume let the spirits be my guide, meet you, brothers and sisters, on the other side."  Then they go into a classic E Street Band jam with a "cheers to us" finish.  It is beautiful, all brought to us from the legendary stage of SNL.  Enjoy!  

UPDATE 7/4/21

I apologize.  The videos that originally accompanied this post are no longer available.