Monday, 26 October 2009

• It's deja vu all over again

  The brain plays tricks.  The details fade.  Still, the concert experience remains.  I had been on the road nearly two months, no schedule, no obligations, no itinerary, one concert ticket.  July 24, 1974.  Or perhaps July 25.  Sixty thousand people, give or take a thousand.  It was a sunny afternoon in Denver.    

  The Beach Boys open the show.  Don't ask me about the set list.  It was thirty-five years ago (and there just might have been recreational pharmaceuticals being passed among the concert goers).  At least I remember it was the Beach Boys.

  The brain fails completely when it comes to the second band.  Usually I claim it was the Doobie Brothers (I've definitely seen them in concert, and, I really do believe it was that day in Denver, but I can find no evidence to support my claim).  On the internet today, I read someone else's recollection of the concert and he insists the second act was Jesse Colin Young.  But I think he may have been seduced by those same recreational pharmaceuticals.  So, his memory could be as faulty as my own. 

  Crosby, Stills and Nash close the show.  Actually, all of the evidence (including the set list) tells me that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young closed the show.  But I don't remember Neil Young.  So it was Crosby, Stills, Nash and maybe Young.

  And through the miracle that is the internet, someone has taken the time to post that set list -

  07/25/74  Mile High Stadium, Denver, CO
  Set One:
  love the one you're with, wooden ships,
       immigration man, traces, almost cut my hair,
       cowgirl in the sand, pre-road downs,
  Set Two:
  only love can break your heart, old man, for
       free, simple man, prison song, sugar
       mountain, ambulance blues, change partners,
       black queen, you can't catch me-> wordgame,
       suite: judy blue eyes,
  Set Three:
  long time gone, don't be denied, first
       things first, deja vu, revolution blues,
       pushed it over the end, military madness,
       ohio, carry on,
  
  When the concert ended, I shouldered my back pack and hitched a ride out of town.  And now, some thirty-five years later, come this Thursday night, I've got tickets to see Crosby, Stills and Nash again in concert.

  Thursday night is the first of two concerts at Madison Square Garden, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Thursday nights' headliners include Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills & Nash.  And a few of their "friends" who have agreed to play include James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Smoky Robinson and Sting. 

  I wonder what I'll remember in thirty-five years (I wonder what I'll remember on Fiday).   

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