The thrill is gone, baby.
Mid-June used to be the time to check the concert schedules at Great Woods, Merrill Center, the Portland Pier, maybe even Gillette Stadium. Hey, the summer was never complete without a rock concert or two, or three. We used to go out like real people. We were even in the Theater-of-the-Month Club and would stay in downtown Boston hotels for the show.
My sainted sister lives within walking distance of Great Woods, now XFinity, in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Check the schedule. I will not pay $100 for Dierks Bentley, Kelly Clarkson, Vans Warped Tour (honest), Slipknot, Incubus or Toby Keith. Yes, I would pay for Neil Young but the website kicked me off four times. They sense my fear.
If Bonnie Raitt or Emmylou Harris isn’t coming to Portland, you can forget it. I’m too tired.
James Taylor was always one of our favorites, even though Meara3 (daughter Bridget’s license plate) calls him “Mister Boring.” We actually made it all the way to Portland last year to see him. We tried to get tickets this year from Ticketron online for several days with no luck. I think websites sense my fear, much like German shepherds.
Once that failed, we gave up, even on James Taylor.
Hey, I used to go out.
I used to be a concert nut and saw some great musicians, like Ray Charles, James Brown, Jimi and Janice, Sam and Dave, even caught Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in an Oakland dive. I once strolled into a New York bar ($3 cover!) to discover Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. In California, the Grateful Dead played so many free concerts that we stopped going. I enjoyed Delbert McClinton as much as anyone. I think I have seen Thelonious Monk but I am not sure. Monk was like that. I have seen Mose Allison all over the place, even in Camden, Maine. There is no one cooler than Mose.
Thanks to Uncle Mike, we got tickets to the Rolling Stones at Foxboro Stadium a time or two. Blue Eyes refused to go to Foxboro after we did a Patriots game that appeared to be a drunken swearing contest. Those people give drinking a bad name. Even I was offended. If I am not the loudest person around, something is just wrong.
It started to go bad for me a few years ago at a Harbor Lights Pavilion concert on the Boston waterfront with Bonnie Raitt and Keb Mo’. Two or three couples behind us were totally drunk and talked about recipes and family matters during the $70-per-ticket concert. Why do those people even go?
That just about did it for me.
Then we went to the State Theatre in Portland to see Emmylou Harris a few years later. I think the same drunk couples were there, talking through the whole show. That was the final straw. The killing shot was another State Theatre show (I can’t remember who) when they had no air conditioning on a very hot summer night.
I look at the lineups in Bangor, Portland and Boston and I am not moved. If the Allman Brothers or Diana Krall played somewhere in Waldoboro or Damariscotta, I would be there.
I avoid Paul Benjamin on the Rockland streets. He not only puts on top drawer blues acts every Monday night at the Time Out Pub, but the North Atlantic Blues Festival that takes over the Rockland waterfront. I think I have been to the Timeout twice. I have not been back to the Blues Festival since Cousin Jerry freaked out and moved to Germany, for God’s sake. He is a Berklee College of Music grad and that festival was his favorite, his New Year’s Eve.
Hey, I now have something like 2,200 songs on my iTunes system. I can stay home and play them on my computer, my iPod, or in my car. Why do I have to travel somewhere to find more drunks talking trash during my music?
Call me if Bonnie Raitt is playing Waldoboro. Or the Stones.
Otherwise, I am staying on my couch.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the BDN in Rockland for 30 years.