Tuesday, the first day back to work after the holiday weekend and The English Beat was playing at Higher Ground. Dave Rap, my former colleague, calls and says we should go to the show because Dave Wakeling, another former colleague, leads the band.
(In the early ‘90s, Dave Wakeling worked for Greenpeace on the west coast, encouraging celebrities to donate some of their star power to environmental issues. Dave Rap and I worked for Greenpeace on the east coast, on the considerably-less-than-glamorous toxics campaign.)
I knew the English Beat from the radio 30 years ago, but I never really followed the band. Now Dave Rap and I were leaning against the bar at the back of a converted movie theater, one third full of middle-aged white people watching a warm-up band whose name I never did catch.
It was the 30th anniversary tour for The English Beat, although Dave Wakeling is the only member of the original band. (Some other originals play in the UK as The Beat.) I’d seen bands playing their 30-year-old hits on PBS during pledge week, the graying, balding, jowly crowd doing its best to bounce along. Now I was watching a crowd that appeared distressingly similar. (I was more than “watching,” I was part of the middle-aged crowd.)
What I expected – perhaps dreaded – didn’t happen. The music was good, the band was tight; I had a right to expect that, but something else happened. Instead of seeing people trying to hold onto something that happened 30 years ago, I saw a group of musicians fully immersed in their craft and fully aware of the circumstances in which they practice that craft.
The room went from one- to two-thirds full by the time the main show got underway, but playing to a small room in Vermont on a Tuesday night makes musicians aware of the limits fame has placed on them. Still, they worked hard not just to give a good performance, but to connect with the audience. There was more going on than just a music-for-money, exchange.
Dave Wakeling dropped corny one-liners between the songs (at one point comparing himself to Andy Williams) with the kind of glee a middle-aged man takes in making his teenaged children wince in front of their friends. Four living, breathing, skanking teenagers were down in front next to the stage. Their presence was noted and appreciated by the band.
In Greece, the rites of Dionysus used music, dance and alcohol to temporarily create a community larger than the sum of its parts. Musicians and bar owners have been trying to accomplish the same trick for the past two millennia. It usually doesn’t work, but people keep going to out hear bands in bars, hoping to be there on the odd night the magic occurs.
I don’t know if anything like magic occurred Tuesday night. Middle age happened. Middle age is the time of life when we become beautiful or grotesque. When we become fully aware of who we are and either make peace with it or lose the war forever.
Tuesday Night in a Small Room
Tuesday, the first day back to work after the holiday weekend and The English Beat was playing at Higher Ground. Dave Rap, my former colleague, calls and says we should go to the show because Dave Wakeling, another former colleague, leads the band.
(In the early ‘90s, Dave Wakeling worked for Greenpeace on the west coast, encouraging celebrities to donate some of their star power to environmental issues. Dave Rap and I worked for Greenpeace on the east coast, on the considerably-less-than-glamorous toxics campaign.)
I knew the English Beat from the radio 30 years ago, but I never really followed the band. Now Dave Rap and I were leaning against the bar at the back of a converted movie theater, one third full of middle-aged white people watching a warm-up band whose name I never did catch.
It was the 30th anniversary tour for The English Beat, although Dave Wakeling is the only member of the original band. (Some other originals play in the UK as The Beat.) I’d seen bands playing their 30-year-old hits on PBS during pledge week, the graying, balding, jowly crowd doing its best to bounce along. Now I was watching a crowd that appeared distressingly similar. (I was more than “watching,” I was part of the middle-aged crowd.)
What I expected – perhaps dreaded – didn’t happen. The music was good, the band was tight; I had a right to expect that, but something else happened. Instead of seeing people trying to hold onto something that happened 30 years ago, I saw a group of musicians fully immersed in their craft and fully aware of the circumstances in which they practice that craft.
The room went from one- to two-thirds full by the time the main show got underway, but playing to a small room in Vermont on a Tuesday night makes musicians aware of the limits fame has placed on them. Still, they worked hard not just to give a good performance, but to connect with the audience. There was more going on than just a music-for-money, exchange.
Dave Wakeling dropped corny one-liners between the songs (at one point comparing himself to Andy Williams) with the kind of glee a middle-aged man takes in making his teenaged children wince in front of their friends. Four living, breathing, skanking teenagers were down in front next to the stage. Their presence was noted and appreciated by the band.
In Greece, the rites of Dionysus used music, dance and alcohol to temporarily create a community larger than the sum of its parts. Musicians and bar owners have been trying to accomplish the same trick for the past two millennia. It usually doesn’t work, but people keep going to out hear bands in bars, hoping to be there on the odd night the magic occurs.
I don’t know if anything like magic occurred Tuesday night. Middle age happened. Middle age is the time of life when we become beautiful or grotesque. When we become fully aware of who we are and either make peace with it or lose the war forever.
As always, peace is better.
© Mark Floegel, 2009