I’m standing on cement and my knees start to ache. I waver and I wobble, and I sway side to side, mere feet from a stage where a singer-songwriter or band holds court. Similarly aged bodies around me fare as well as mine—yet none of us care. We’re swept up in the moment, the music, the melodies and rhythms that shape-shift from song to song.
Some nights, we’re a handful among many, us oldsters, with the remaining floorspace populated by young ‘uns who bop about like jumping beans during uptempo tunes and swirl during slower numbers. Such was the case at the Mikaela Davis & Southern Star and Staves concerts I caught last year. Other nights, though, we attendees could well be at an AARP convention, not a concert—as was the case at the Peter Case and Sid Griffin show I saw in March.
“‘Live music is better’ bumper stickers should be issued” is a line from a lesser-known Neil Young number, “Union Man,” that’s taken on a life of its own thanks in part to the denizens of the old Rust List, an email community of—you got it—Neil Young fans that I belonged to in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. It’s a sentiment most music fans agree with, I think. Live music is better. Bumper stickers should be—and have been—issued.
My first concert: the Kinks in 1983, when I was 17. In the decades since, I’ve attended more shows than I can count and/or remember. In the early years, especially, the shows primarily took place at the Philadelphia Spectrum, where a cannabis cloud inevitably formed above the floor section, and the Mann Music Center, where grass—both kinds—was plentiful on the lawn. (My Of Concerts Past series recaps several, though far from all, of those shows.) I was a college kid on a budget, however, which meant money was tight. I simply couldn’t afford as many concerts as I wanted to attend, but those I did—wow. Just wow.
Post-college and gainfully employed, aka from the late ’80s on, live music became a regular part of my life—even more so once I met (and eventually married) Diane, who was and is as much of a music aficionado as me. Club concerts and smaller venues, such as our homes away from home, the Tin Angel and World Cafe Live, satiated us, as most of our favorites (and we have many) never transcended to arena status.
One of my few life regrets is not keeping track of it all. I’ve captured clips from many shows from 2015 on—far more than what I uploaded to YouTube—but everything that came before? For the longest time, ticket stubs wound up in the trash or left forgotten in a drawer until our 2014 move, when I came across quite a few. (One of the more saddening aspects of modern life: the virtual ticket.) While some concerts remain vivid in my mind, others have faded—and others have disappeared altogether. Sometimes Diane will mention a night out that I don’t recall. (Other times the reverse is true.) Often, an artist or band will come up in conversation and we’re like…yeah, we think saw them. But when? Where? At the Chestnut Cabaret? The TLA? Tin Angel? Tower Theater? Keswick? Spectrum? Wachovia/FU/Wells Fargo Center? Who knows? (It’s one reason among several that I maintain a newspapers.com account!)
All that said, these days, we don’t see as many shows as we once did—and not because of our ever-advancing ages. We moved south at the end of 2018 and, sad to say, many of our favorite (new and old) artists and bands just don’t play the area. If I ever win big on a lottery, I plan to open a small club with comfortable seats and book them!
Anyway, to finally answer the question: The last concert I attended was a free one: local country-pop singer Savanna Leigh Bassett, who entertained at a wine bar about five minutes from our front door; she’s slated to play another free show near us next week and, given that we thoroughly enjoyed her, we’ll likely attend. The last paid show: Cassandra Jenkins, who delivered a spellbinding set at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room in Carrboro, NC, in late March. We have a few concerts on deck, too: singer-songwriter Charlotte Morris, who enchanted us when we saw her last year; jazz singer Samara Joy, singer-songwriter Kassi Valazza, and country troubadour Kelsey Waldon.
The Old Grey Cat 