So, I made a decision: Every chance I had, I would see a performer whose music I love — regardless of age, infirmity or musical style. My mantra became: See them before they die. Over the past three decades, that quest has taken me to venues across the country to see every imaginable genre of live music.
That vow took me, in the years that followed, to RFK Stadium, where I saw Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead. In November, it brought me to Huntington Beach, Calif., for the Darker Waves Festival, where I spent 12 hours in an ’80s music nirvana: the English Beat, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, Violent Femmes, Devo, Soft Cell, the Psychedelic Furs, the Human League, the B-52s, New Order and Tears for Fears. And this summer, it will take me back to Los Angeles for the Fool in Love festival, where I’ll see Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Santana, Gladys Knight, Kool & the Gang, Chaka Khan, the Isley Brothers, Eric Burdon and the Animals, War, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Morris Day and the Time, Evelyn “Champagne” King and others.
During the actual ’80s, when I grew up, I didn’t see a lot of these performers live. As a teen, I hung out in New York clubs such as Danceteria, where Madonna got her start, and my first concert was her Virgin Tour at Madison Square Garden. I camped out with friends overnight outside Tower Records for tickets. Otis Day and the Knights, of “Animal House” fame, played my high school, and I was one of the official greeters (“You get Otis high, Otis will be your friend,” he told us as he got out of the car). I saw Van Halen in college (but missed the David Lee Roth era) and David Bowie on his Glass Spider Tour in Paris (with the Cult as his opening act). But that was pretty much it.
It was not until the ’90s that I began concert-going in earnest. In those days, one of my best friends, Mark Franz, was dating his now-wife, Sara, who lived in New York, so we would drive up to the city pretty much every weekend, playing mixtapes on the car’s cassette deck. As soon as we arrived, we’d grab a copy of the Village Voice to see which bands were playing. One day, we saw a postage-stamp-size ad that read: “Donald Fagen and the New York Rock and Soul Revue at Lone Star Roadhouse.” Steely Dan had quit playing live back 1974. Could it really be that Donald Fagen? It was. We saw him play before a few hundred people — an unforgettable night.
Mark also turned me on to a group called Poi Dog Pondering he’d discovered as a student at the University of Texas in Austin. They never made the Billboard charts but are still my favorite band. We’d see them at the old 9:30 Club in D.C. and traveled up and down the East Coast for their shows. One of my as-yet-unfulfilled musical dreams: The lead singer, Frank Orrall, is an accomplished chef who will come to your house and cook dinner for you and play a set in your living room. Maybe to mark their 40th anniversary this year.
In 1996, I met my now-wife, Pam. I knew she was The One when she accepted my invitation to go on a first date to see … KISS. How could I not fall in love? She got me back years later when, for my 40th birthday, she took me to Las Vegas to see … Barry Manilow. (What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!)
We have four kids, and they have joined us on our eclectic musical journey. We wanted them to have a cool answer to the question “What was your first concert?” So, we took our oldest, Max, to see Van Halen with Roth back in the band in 2012. He got to hear “Eruption” — the greatest guitar solo of all time — live before Eddie Van Halen stopped performing a few years later (and died a few years after that). Max’s siblings, Jack, Eva and Lucy, saw Bon Jovi for their first show a few years later. (Truth be told, their first live show was the Wiggles — but that doesn’t really count.)
Almost a quarter-century after our first date, Pam and I took the whole family to see KISS on their End of the Road farewell tour. (My daughters and I wore full makeup.) Eva drove up to New York with me to see a-ha when they made a rare U.S. stop, and she joined me for the Sugarhill Gang (and even got a picture with Master Gee!). Lucy has gotten me into country and Christian music. She and I have gone to the Grand Ole Opry, where we saw Carrie Underwood, and we have seen Morgan Wallen, Rodney…
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