By Michael A. Weiss

Lovers of rock and blues music are first introduced via recordings. They become smitten after a live performance. Thanks to my two older sisters, the guys who dated them, and perhaps more importantly, the guys who wanted to date them, I got the music itch at a very young age. Whether it was a band, record, song or concert, music soon became my emotional North Star.

One summer while at camp, a few bunkmates and I formed an air guitar band and performed live on stage at a talent show. Not exactly my proudest moment. That music could move me so much, to act the fool in front of an audience of my peers, smile from the thrill of it (and freely write about it 35 years later for the entire world to read), well, there you have it. There’s something magical about the feelings communicated through music. Some people focus on dancing to the music’s beat, involuntarily memorizing the words as a cue. Others dig music because of what the lyrics mean, or, when they are Steely Dan fans, what they think they mean. But just like a teenager stumbling upon a beautiful girl with an even cooler personality, I loved it all and couldn’t get enough. It was only a matter of time before this great passion of mine took me on a golden journey.

 

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at Rochester Community War Memorial, Rochester, NY, December 2, 1980

It was my sophomore year in college and I was fed up with hearing about the exhilarating 4 ½ hour concerts routinely performed by Bruce and the band. It was time for me to experience it for myself. Darkness on the Edge of Town posters hung in every dorm room, beckoning me to see him live. In November, we learned that Bruce was playing in Rochester, NY, approximately 2 ½ hours away. Once my friend with the car agreed to go, it was on. We didn’t make travel plans, per se, other than who would drive and who controlled the radio/cassette deck. The friend who owned the car was a huge Springsteen fan but also a very studious math major. This proved to be a tricky combination when he relied upon me to point out any potential weather problems. A Rochester, NY, blizzard sounded bad and I was not Tex Antoine so I felt no obligation to mention this development to anyone other than the two other guys joining us whose parents’ cars were not being driven to Rochester. They laughed and thought I was exaggerating.

There were four of us in the car as we left Binghamton, NY, that Tuesday morning. It was cold, but clear, as we embarked on the road trip to the concert. The party started in the car, that is, except for my best friend in the back seat who had to study for his Biochemistry final on Friday. As we approached Rochester a few hours later, dark storm clouds rolled in and suddenly it began to snow. The math major, not a guy fond of many words, turned to look at me for reassurance that this snow would pass. Since the other two guys knew about the weather forecast, they started laughing. It was then that his menacing stare drilled into me. Within minutes, flurries turned into a historic blizzard. It became difficult to control the car, or see where we were going. We knew we were close to the venue but there was zero visibility. No one would admit it, but we were all scared. We must have been driving 10 miles-per-hour when we heard a thump and then realized the car had collided with some type of object. We stopped the car. No one wanted to get out to brave the Antarctica-like conditions so we all laughed because that’s what you do when you’re in college on a road-trip.

In order to figure out which one of us would brave the weather and assess the possibility of a catastrophic car collision, we laughed and one of us drew the short straw. Naturally, it was the guy who only had on sneakers and a thin leather jacket. He struggled to push the car door open, complaining about the frigid air. He had to fight the wind to keep the door open long enough to get out of the car. At first all we heard were curses every few seconds as icy pellets stung his face and hands. Then he yelled out that he was looking for damage. Suddenly, we heard him moan like he’d been shot. We laughed. As he made his way back into the car, he told us we’d collided with a dumpster in the parking lot of a Rochester Holiday Inn. This news hung silently in the air like an NFL punt until we roared with laughter.

The hotel had one room left and we were told it was within walking distance of the concert venue. We did not have enough money for the room since we’d planned on driving back to Binghamton after the show. Given the dire weather circumstances, this wasn’t an immediate problem as long as we promised to call our parents for the money. That was clearly never going to happen, at least for me, as I knew my parents would make me transfer back home to Queens College so I’d never do something this stupid again.

After settling in at the hotel, we walked in the general direction of the Rochester Community War Memorial arena. But even as pedestrians, it was very difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. We connected with some fellow Bruce Springsteen fans and together we navigated the blizzard to downtown Rochester. Within five minutes we found more fans, a bunch of college students, who were using the venue’s entryway as refuge from the wind. We followed their lead. The wind whipped from all directions and we soon realized we had better change course or our fun would turn to dread.

That’s when the magic happened.

Huddled in the entryway of the venue, and still a few hours before the concert was set to start, the doors to the Rochester Community War Memorial suddenly sprung open. Some kindhearted executives took pity on us. They ushered us into the arena as we heard Bruce and the band performing their sound check for the show. We sat down quietly along with about 100 other people. That’s when Springsteen looked up and said, “Hey, haven’t you guys ever heard of being fashionably late? Well, what do you want to hear?” This was when we realized Bruce Springsteen was about to play FOR US. Some claimed he performed “Good Rockin’ Tonight” but I recall he also performed “Detroit Medley.” Regardless, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed FOR US like we were record company executives. I will never forget the genuine passion they displayed during this “sound-check performance.”

And that was just the beginning of an incredible experience as we did not sit down for one second of the 4 ½ hour concert. Nothing could have prepared me for the non-stop energy I shared that night with 10,000 people. We did get stuck in Rochester for two nights as the blizzard forced the closure of the New York State Thruway. But we had so much fun in the cold, tiny hotel room, watching our aspiring biochemist study amidst all the memorable mayhem. The ties that bind. You can listen to this concert here.

 

photo credit: unknown

Don Henley and Friends, The Walden Woods Benefit, at The Centrum, Worcester, Massachusetts, April 24, 1990

The Eagles broke up in 1980 but Southern California rock was the soundtrack to my life, going all the way back to the Beach Boys. So much so that I followed the solo careers of Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner in hopes that one day, hell would freeze over, and they’d get back together. At the time, I was living in Boston finishing the dreaded first year of law school. For the first time in my life I was a few years older than my peers so I understood the pressures of law school but was never intimidated by them. But there was a girl in my class who caught my attention the first time I saw her stand up in Civil Procedure class to nervously address the John Houseman-like professor of our law school. And nothing prepared me for that.

We became friendly but I knew there was more to our story. While she seemed to always have a boyfriend, I was confident. I stayed “in play” by trying to connect with her through music, my occasionally successful go-to move, by the way. Turned out she was also a Don Henley fan, and she often made insightful comments about his lyrics. The more I knew, the more I understood where we were headed, even if she did not. Then Henley’s “Walden Woods Project” became news as he sought to preserve both the legacy of philosopher, writer, poet and environmentalist, Henry David Thoreau, and the natural beauty of Walden Woods, a forest surrounding Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.

Henley planned to raise money for his ambitious charitable endeavor through some benefit concerts, kicking off with a show at the nearby Centrum Arena in Worcester, MA. The announced lineup included Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, Bonnie Raitt, Glenn Frey and Timothy B. Schmit. I could not believe I lived within driving distance of this concert so I called everyone I knew in the music business to get tickets.

The pleasantly distracting law-school-girl and I had never gone out on a date but something about our interactions made me feel comfortable asking her to join me on this road-trip. I knew she liked the music so I made it all about that. I figured she wouldn’t accept my invitation and that’s how I managed to stave off any romantic intentions. But then she said, “Yes” and I had to promise myself to focus on the music and having fun. If she also had fun, well, then I’d possibly reassess. The ride to Worcester was a little over an hour and just driving in the car with her was mesmerizing because we had never hung out so intimately. When we arrived at the show and Jimmy Buffett played Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl,” it felt like we had begun some type of adventure. Bonnie Raitt followed with “Thing Called Love” and my sexy classmate looked at me smiling with her eyes. Just to be clear, I’d never seen that before.

There was never a second of awkwardness between us as Bob Seger continued making my case with a stunning performance of “Night Moves.” Don Henley reappeared on stage and assisted Seger with his crowd-pleasing tune, “Old Time Rock & Roll.” Then Henley did his own set that included the songs she and I always talked about: “Dirty Laundry,” “Heart of the Matter” and “The Last Worthless Evening.” When he finished playing, we were both in awe of what we had just seen. We didn’t have to speak. We just smiled at one another. After some speeches related to Walden Woods, Glenn Frey raised the stakes by performing “Smuggler’s Blues,” probably one of my favorite songs. The entire experience was just so cool. Hell then began to chill as Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit joined Glenn Frey and we witnessed the mini-Eagles reunion. They played 10 songs including “Lyin’ Eyes,” “I Can’t Tell You Why,” “Hotel California” and “Life in the Fast Lane.” As I recall, Buffett, Seger, Bonnie Raitt and Miami Vice’s Don Johnson came out to sing backup vocals on “Heartache Tonight.”

We were BLOWN AWAY. If I wanted to hire Don Henley and his friends to impress this girl, I could not have come close to producing anything nearly as fantastic as this concert. I tried to play it cool as if I went to shows like this all the time but she saw right through me and thought it was hilarious. Besides, “playing it cool” in her presence was just not possible for me so I abandoned ship as soon as she busted me. Something about this concert and the road-trip experience sparked a connection between us, which turned romantic within a few months. Then we became soulmates for a long time. THAT, is the magic of music. Footage from this show can be watched here.

 

What are your most memorable concert experiences? Please comment below.