The Eagles Concert or My Trip to Bizarro World
Living in a bubble is not a good thing. Especially when you don’t even realize you are in one. Well unless it results in a made for TV movie … hmmm, on second thought I don’t really think any of us ever need to see a movie with John Travolta in a plastic bubble again. Well unless somebody came up with the good idea of having the remake be about painting the bubble black and then kicking it down a hill while yelling at him that Scientology is not a religion, philosophy, or even a really bad scifi novel. Now that would be a good remake, a good use of a bubble, and a good use of John Travolta.
Oh and to you Mr. Johnny Lubitch … your son is a freak. Okay, okay John Travolta just played your son but hell did you see him in Battlefield Earth. Freeeeeeaaaaaakkkkkk! Please put him back in the bubble now!!!
Anyway over the past several months I have been in a bubble and have not really been noticing the wider world around me and opportunities presented to me. Or when I have become aware of them it has been way too late to take advantage of them (that is how I missed Anthony Bordain at the Adrienne Arsht Center).
Hey! Hey! Stop your sniggering at me calling South Florida the “wider” world. To me it is … right now … for this moment … well until I go a traveling again. Besides, after all everything is relative and based on your perspective. So South Florida is a world, maybe a world unto itself, but definitely a world.
I mean if any place on the planet deserves to be labeled a world apart it would be here. All you have to do is turn on the local news, read a local paper, or sometimes even watch CNN (or go to their website) and you will see what I mean. No other place in the U.S. seems as inundated with its own bizarre events, crazed personalities spouting nonsense and insisting it is the gospel, unique bands, plagues of locust (well if any self respecting locust would plague here instead of saying plague Disney World instead), infestations of dirty long haired hippies (usually who end up here because they drank something like Green Tea Liqueur and then in a blind, alcoholic haze took a wrong turn while going to Burning Man and ended up here by mistake), and so on. Trust me at times it is like living on Bizarro World and having to put with Bizarro Superman trying to make us live by the Bizarro code of “Us do opposite of all Earthly things!”
Now as I was saying, yes South Florida is its own world and I have been in a bubble and not hearing about, seeing, or taking advantage of opportunities down here. Well the non-bizarro ones that is. Then again you never really know what is bizarro and what is not.
Case in point, I heard about the Eagles playing a concert down here from my Cousin who works for Warner Brothers. Of course I am sure it was plastered all over the airwaves, bill boards, and who knows what else but somehow, yes I didn’t know. How did I miss it? I don’t know? Either I must have blithely humming some mind destroying tune, like say the theme song for the Smurfs, during my daily routine or government agents slipped a new experimental drug into my water that turned me into an oblivious, mental zombie. So you pick … Smurf theme song or government black op agents with drugs. Either way I was brain dead to miss all the advertising and if it wasn’t for my cousin I would have never known the Eagles were playing.
I thought it was too late to get tickets. Well good tickets that is. Not tickets for seats so high up in the nose bleed bleachers that I would have to rent an oxygen tank to be able to make it through the concert without passing out from high altitude hypoxia.
Turns out I was wrong and life intervened and we got tickets to the VIP section for the concert; Got to love my cousin. Of course at the time I thought I was going to a concert not to Bizarro World. I forgot that South Florida can sneak up on you like that, although to be fair it was not as Bizarro as it could have been.
First off let me say that I have not been to a concert at a major venue since 1984. Hey, I just prefer smaller venues and clubs. I find them more personal and better experience usually when listening to a band play.
Back in 1984 I went to see Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister at a stadium that I could swear was in the same place as the Bank Atlantic Center. Of course that is where the similarities end. Well sort of.
In 1984 I was driving a 1978 Celica Hatchback (pumping out enough noxious fumes to choke a flock of seagulls) which had no power steering, struggling with acne, and trying to impress a girl.
In 2009 I was driving Prius Hybrid with a GPS unit, annoyed that my beard is turning white on me, and going to see the concert with my sister. Hey, now I went my sister for three reasons:
1. The first woman I asked was going to be out of town during the concert.
2. The second woman I asked didn’t like the Eagles and gave me a look like I should just find a grave and collapse in it for liking a band from the 70s.
3. Finally my sister is one of the most sarcastically funny people that I know and would be perfect for people watching at concert with.
Overall the experience was the same yet but not. Hence it was a trip to Bizarro world. Okay first off I remember when I went back in 1984 that it was a pain to get to the stadium since it was in the middle of nowhere. I mean nowhere, like not even a self respecting cow would be caught dead out where the stadium was. Yet somehow though the traffic getting the stadium (nowhere) was a nightmare; At least that part was the same 24 years later.
Yet it was disconcerting to be struck in a traffic jam made up of BMWs, Mercedes, Hummers, and Jaguars trying to get the stadium parking lot while being boxed in by the suburban sprawl on both sides of the road. Back in 1984, as I said cows would throw tantrums if you tried to force them to go out there and the traffic jam was made up of beat up used Hondas, Celicas, and other things that a teen could afford on salary working at Publix, Eckards, or at the mall. 2009? I think they had special police deployed to tell anybody driving a beat up 2nd hand car that their kind was not allowed in these parts.
The stadium itself … well if you had not been to the Bank Atlantic Center it is hard to explain but I will try. It is well lit, clean (well relatively clean), and like some sort of modern day over the top temple to consumerism. It has a kiosk every 5 feet selling beer or liquor or food at outrageous prices. So the outrageous prices stayed the same but back then I remember that the stadium decorative motif was undressed concrete. Now? Its hallways are carpeted or tiled, posters and placards line the walls pitching things like jewelry, why you should go to the Bahamas, and a host of other like things. Hell there was even a car dealership with parked cars inside trying to sell you on the idea that maybe it is time to turn in your Beemer. After all it was a year old now and 2009 Beemer is so gosht. Oh back in 1984 they patted you down to find any liquor that you were trying to smuggle in. Now they are like “would you like Grey Goose vodka or Kettle one?” That is as long as you are willing to pay for it and prices that would make Al Capone blanch. Woops, I should update that now .. something timely. I know…
At prices that would make a Bank CEO blanch. ;)
I digress though.
A lot of the outward trappings definitely have changed giving everything a bizarro sheen. However, after awhile of people watching you realize that quite a few things have not. In the when I saw Iron Maiden in the 80s the crowd would have been made up of kids doing their best to convince everyone they were rebels, or outcasts, or not main stream.
Now, oh god is the crowd main stream. However, they still behaved the same. I guess you can say that they just grew up with the band they loved and they mellowed. Or are no longer about trying to prove how counter culture they are. Sort of hard to be counter culture when raising your own kids and tooling around town in a Mercedes or Hummer anyway.
However, I learned that no matter what their age is ... 16, 18, 21, 40, 50, 60 … girls / women have the inherited ability to be able to actually dance in a two foot by two foot space. Not only did I learn that but that many of them really do it well. Turn down the lights and you can’t even tell there age, all you see is girl dancing ... not a teen, not a mom, not a grand mom but a girl dancing to music they like . Hell, they were probably doing the same thing Ancient Greece. I can see it now Orpheus playing a stadium with a bunch of women standing up in front of their seats and dancing in a two foot by two foot space while most of the men present looked on clueless and tried not look awkward and uncomfortable.
Actually that was the amazing thing. When the lights go out people are just people. You can’t see their differences. You only see well how they are still doing and acting the same as when they were kids. Now granted back in the 70s and 80s everyone would have been on their feet during the whole concert. Now? Well if you weren’t on the main floor or up close quite a few people sat through the concert. Oh, and instead of holding up lighters people held up iPhones with their virtual lighter apps running; again the same behavior but with a bizarro twist.
Also just like my last concert I went to in 1984 there was a drunk guy in front of us. You always have one no matter what or where are and usually. You know the guy. The one where you start making bets that he is going to do a header into the row in front of him since he is either wasted on weed or blitz from some bad alcohol he smuggled in. Although usually he was in a torn up jeans and some sort of shirt he thought was cool. Our guy, lets see shorts, a wind breaker, and a beer belly that breweries across the nation are probably competing with each other to make him their customer. Lights off though it could have been 1984 with me listening to some kid slur his speech, laugh at his own comments, and stumble about for no apparent reason, and as I said sooner or later taking a header. Of course I could have done without the 2009 version bending over and having his shorts giving us “plumber” crack.
Anyway the actual concert was great. We were about 50 feet from the stage and had a very good view of the band and all their antics. Or lack of antics. Seemed there are two types of bands from the 60s and 70s. Those who bounced, flounced, and ran about the whole stage in a hyperactive drug fueled frenzy (think Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones .. and please, please, somebody stop Mick from Prancing anymore!) and those who really didn’t move at all but played in place but the audience was so stoned on something that they thought the band was bouncing and prancing all over the stage.
The Eagles? Yeah, they didn’t move. In the second set they even had stools set up for them. Granted it was their acoustic set but I have my suspicions that they had ulterior motives for their use of stools.
The other thing about the band is yes, you can tell they really, really, really don’t like each other. However, unlike other bands that just get back together to make some more money they actually really enjoy the music. By the second set you could see them giving in and just enjoying jamming with each other and making good music. Well except for Don Henley, he was having none of it. He was either at his drums or off by himself and refusing to have fun with the others.
It was nice to see that they could put their dislike of each other aside for the music.
Oh, they had a photo montage of Joe Walsh with all of it back from the 70s. I have to say he sort of looked weird then. Now 30 years later? Sorry he just looks creepy. Like haunted house creepy .. you know the guy that usually opens the door and invites you in creepy.
However, Timothy Smidth ... um ... there comes a time when every man with long hair really needs to give in and cut it. Timothy Smidth with long grey hair and in a spotlight … um, think Skeletor. That is if Skeletor gave up trying to conquer Eternia and decided to just hang out and play in a band with Beastman, Mer-man, Trap Jaw, and Tri-Klops. Another thing is no matter what people want to take pictures of a concert. However, in hindsight it is funny that when we are young you would actually be intimidated by the signs saying no pictures or the announcements that no pictures are allowed. So when you took one you would try to desperately hide that you were doing so and expected security to be on top of you in seconds to quick mark you out of the stadium.
Now? Everyone and I mean everyone took photos. It was like the stadium was filled with a swarm of fireflies. Not even sure why the stadium and promoters even tried the “no pictures allowed” announcements. Although it would have been funny to see even one of the ushers, attendants, roadies or whatever try to enforce the “no pictures” rule with this crowd.
“Yes, I know you are judge or the mayor or the captain of the police department but hand over that camera and no you are not getting it back!”
The last thing that made me raise my eyebrow .. or should I say the last bizarro world thing was on the way out. There were a few .. how should I put this .. sugar daddies about. I guess way back when it was about the guy with the hot car or the popular guy or something. Now, same people involved but it is all about … well being sugar daddies.
There was one guy, maybe in his 60s but wow was he buff and must have spent all of his time in the gym obviously trying to deny the fact that time catches us all. But to go along with his motif he had to have a younger girlfriend with really, really bad fashion taste. I am not sure why anybody would think a woman in a cowboy hat, tiny jean skirt (beaded and painted of course), and leather boots with brass studs would come across as anything but girl with a sugar daddy but obviously he thought somehow that by having her he impressed the rest of us wimpy men.
Of course she was not as bad as the lady who walked by wear a micro skirt and a backless vest that ... well it looked like it was made out of Pomeranians. Either that or somebody had captured some of the furrier Muppets and tried to make them into an article of clothing.
So I guess now like then there are always people trying to impress others with their perceived status and those who flock to them. Thankfully most of the crowd was not like that (I don’t think I worried once about getting stuffed in a locker by the cool kids) and the music was outstanding which more than made up for my trip to Bizarro World.
Oh, and yes being the photo geek I am and also that the “man” could not intimidate me into not taking photos, I took a ton. Here is the link to photos of the concert:
Eagles Concert Photos
Oh, and yes being the photo geek I am and also that the “man” could not intimidate me into not taking photos, I took a ton. Here is the link to photos of the concert:
www.flickr.com/photos/redfoxspirit/sets/72157614320576065/
Oh and to you Mr. Johnny Lubitch … your son is a freak. Okay, okay John Travolta just played your son but hell did you see him in Battlefield Earth. Freeeeeeaaaaaakkkkkk! Please put him back in the bubble now!!!
Anyway over the past several months I have been in a bubble and have not really been noticing the wider world around me and opportunities presented to me. Or when I have become aware of them it has been way too late to take advantage of them (that is how I missed Anthony Bordain at the Adrienne Arsht Center).
Hey! Hey! Stop your sniggering at me calling South Florida the “wider” world. To me it is … right now … for this moment … well until I go a traveling again. Besides, after all everything is relative and based on your perspective. So South Florida is a world, maybe a world unto itself, but definitely a world.
I mean if any place on the planet deserves to be labeled a world apart it would be here. All you have to do is turn on the local news, read a local paper, or sometimes even watch CNN (or go to their website) and you will see what I mean. No other place in the U.S. seems as inundated with its own bizarre events, crazed personalities spouting nonsense and insisting it is the gospel, unique bands, plagues of locust (well if any self respecting locust would plague here instead of saying plague Disney World instead), infestations of dirty long haired hippies (usually who end up here because they drank something like Green Tea Liqueur and then in a blind, alcoholic haze took a wrong turn while going to Burning Man and ended up here by mistake), and so on. Trust me at times it is like living on Bizarro World and having to put with Bizarro Superman trying to make us live by the Bizarro code of “Us do opposite of all Earthly things!”
Now as I was saying, yes South Florida is its own world and I have been in a bubble and not hearing about, seeing, or taking advantage of opportunities down here. Well the non-bizarro ones that is. Then again you never really know what is bizarro and what is not.
Case in point, I heard about the Eagles playing a concert down here from my Cousin who works for Warner Brothers. Of course I am sure it was plastered all over the airwaves, bill boards, and who knows what else but somehow, yes I didn’t know. How did I miss it? I don’t know? Either I must have blithely humming some mind destroying tune, like say the theme song for the Smurfs, during my daily routine or government agents slipped a new experimental drug into my water that turned me into an oblivious, mental zombie. So you pick … Smurf theme song or government black op agents with drugs. Either way I was brain dead to miss all the advertising and if it wasn’t for my cousin I would have never known the Eagles were playing.
I thought it was too late to get tickets. Well good tickets that is. Not tickets for seats so high up in the nose bleed bleachers that I would have to rent an oxygen tank to be able to make it through the concert without passing out from high altitude hypoxia.
Turns out I was wrong and life intervened and we got tickets to the VIP section for the concert; Got to love my cousin. Of course at the time I thought I was going to a concert not to Bizarro World. I forgot that South Florida can sneak up on you like that, although to be fair it was not as Bizarro as it could have been.
First off let me say that I have not been to a concert at a major venue since 1984. Hey, I just prefer smaller venues and clubs. I find them more personal and better experience usually when listening to a band play.
Back in 1984 I went to see Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister at a stadium that I could swear was in the same place as the Bank Atlantic Center. Of course that is where the similarities end. Well sort of.
In 1984 I was driving a 1978 Celica Hatchback (pumping out enough noxious fumes to choke a flock of seagulls) which had no power steering, struggling with acne, and trying to impress a girl.
In 2009 I was driving Prius Hybrid with a GPS unit, annoyed that my beard is turning white on me, and going to see the concert with my sister. Hey, now I went my sister for three reasons:
1. The first woman I asked was going to be out of town during the concert.
2. The second woman I asked didn’t like the Eagles and gave me a look like I should just find a grave and collapse in it for liking a band from the 70s.
3. Finally my sister is one of the most sarcastically funny people that I know and would be perfect for people watching at concert with.
Overall the experience was the same yet but not. Hence it was a trip to Bizarro world. Okay first off I remember when I went back in 1984 that it was a pain to get to the stadium since it was in the middle of nowhere. I mean nowhere, like not even a self respecting cow would be caught dead out where the stadium was. Yet somehow though the traffic getting the stadium (nowhere) was a nightmare; At least that part was the same 24 years later.
Yet it was disconcerting to be struck in a traffic jam made up of BMWs, Mercedes, Hummers, and Jaguars trying to get the stadium parking lot while being boxed in by the suburban sprawl on both sides of the road. Back in 1984, as I said cows would throw tantrums if you tried to force them to go out there and the traffic jam was made up of beat up used Hondas, Celicas, and other things that a teen could afford on salary working at Publix, Eckards, or at the mall. 2009? I think they had special police deployed to tell anybody driving a beat up 2nd hand car that their kind was not allowed in these parts.
The stadium itself … well if you had not been to the Bank Atlantic Center it is hard to explain but I will try. It is well lit, clean (well relatively clean), and like some sort of modern day over the top temple to consumerism. It has a kiosk every 5 feet selling beer or liquor or food at outrageous prices. So the outrageous prices stayed the same but back then I remember that the stadium decorative motif was undressed concrete. Now? Its hallways are carpeted or tiled, posters and placards line the walls pitching things like jewelry, why you should go to the Bahamas, and a host of other like things. Hell there was even a car dealership with parked cars inside trying to sell you on the idea that maybe it is time to turn in your Beemer. After all it was a year old now and 2009 Beemer is so gosht. Oh back in 1984 they patted you down to find any liquor that you were trying to smuggle in. Now they are like “would you like Grey Goose vodka or Kettle one?” That is as long as you are willing to pay for it and prices that would make Al Capone blanch. Woops, I should update that now .. something timely. I know…
At prices that would make a Bank CEO blanch. ;)
I digress though.
A lot of the outward trappings definitely have changed giving everything a bizarro sheen. However, after awhile of people watching you realize that quite a few things have not. In the when I saw Iron Maiden in the 80s the crowd would have been made up of kids doing their best to convince everyone they were rebels, or outcasts, or not main stream.
Now, oh god is the crowd main stream. However, they still behaved the same. I guess you can say that they just grew up with the band they loved and they mellowed. Or are no longer about trying to prove how counter culture they are. Sort of hard to be counter culture when raising your own kids and tooling around town in a Mercedes or Hummer anyway.
However, I learned that no matter what their age is ... 16, 18, 21, 40, 50, 60 … girls / women have the inherited ability to be able to actually dance in a two foot by two foot space. Not only did I learn that but that many of them really do it well. Turn down the lights and you can’t even tell there age, all you see is girl dancing ... not a teen, not a mom, not a grand mom but a girl dancing to music they like . Hell, they were probably doing the same thing Ancient Greece. I can see it now Orpheus playing a stadium with a bunch of women standing up in front of their seats and dancing in a two foot by two foot space while most of the men present looked on clueless and tried not look awkward and uncomfortable.
Actually that was the amazing thing. When the lights go out people are just people. You can’t see their differences. You only see well how they are still doing and acting the same as when they were kids. Now granted back in the 70s and 80s everyone would have been on their feet during the whole concert. Now? Well if you weren’t on the main floor or up close quite a few people sat through the concert. Oh, and instead of holding up lighters people held up iPhones with their virtual lighter apps running; again the same behavior but with a bizarro twist.
Also just like my last concert I went to in 1984 there was a drunk guy in front of us. You always have one no matter what or where are and usually. You know the guy. The one where you start making bets that he is going to do a header into the row in front of him since he is either wasted on weed or blitz from some bad alcohol he smuggled in. Although usually he was in a torn up jeans and some sort of shirt he thought was cool. Our guy, lets see shorts, a wind breaker, and a beer belly that breweries across the nation are probably competing with each other to make him their customer. Lights off though it could have been 1984 with me listening to some kid slur his speech, laugh at his own comments, and stumble about for no apparent reason, and as I said sooner or later taking a header. Of course I could have done without the 2009 version bending over and having his shorts giving us “plumber” crack.
Anyway the actual concert was great. We were about 50 feet from the stage and had a very good view of the band and all their antics. Or lack of antics. Seemed there are two types of bands from the 60s and 70s. Those who bounced, flounced, and ran about the whole stage in a hyperactive drug fueled frenzy (think Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones .. and please, please, somebody stop Mick from Prancing anymore!) and those who really didn’t move at all but played in place but the audience was so stoned on something that they thought the band was bouncing and prancing all over the stage.
The Eagles? Yeah, they didn’t move. In the second set they even had stools set up for them. Granted it was their acoustic set but I have my suspicions that they had ulterior motives for their use of stools.
The other thing about the band is yes, you can tell they really, really, really don’t like each other. However, unlike other bands that just get back together to make some more money they actually really enjoy the music. By the second set you could see them giving in and just enjoying jamming with each other and making good music. Well except for Don Henley, he was having none of it. He was either at his drums or off by himself and refusing to have fun with the others.
It was nice to see that they could put their dislike of each other aside for the music.
Oh, they had a photo montage of Joe Walsh with all of it back from the 70s. I have to say he sort of looked weird then. Now 30 years later? Sorry he just looks creepy. Like haunted house creepy .. you know the guy that usually opens the door and invites you in creepy.
However, Timothy Smidth ... um ... there comes a time when every man with long hair really needs to give in and cut it. Timothy Smidth with long grey hair and in a spotlight … um, think Skeletor. That is if Skeletor gave up trying to conquer Eternia and decided to just hang out and play in a band with Beastman, Mer-man, Trap Jaw, and Tri-Klops. Another thing is no matter what people want to take pictures of a concert. However, in hindsight it is funny that when we are young you would actually be intimidated by the signs saying no pictures or the announcements that no pictures are allowed. So when you took one you would try to desperately hide that you were doing so and expected security to be on top of you in seconds to quick mark you out of the stadium.
Now? Everyone and I mean everyone took photos. It was like the stadium was filled with a swarm of fireflies. Not even sure why the stadium and promoters even tried the “no pictures allowed” announcements. Although it would have been funny to see even one of the ushers, attendants, roadies or whatever try to enforce the “no pictures” rule with this crowd.
“Yes, I know you are judge or the mayor or the captain of the police department but hand over that camera and no you are not getting it back!”
The last thing that made me raise my eyebrow .. or should I say the last bizarro world thing was on the way out. There were a few .. how should I put this .. sugar daddies about. I guess way back when it was about the guy with the hot car or the popular guy or something. Now, same people involved but it is all about … well being sugar daddies.
There was one guy, maybe in his 60s but wow was he buff and must have spent all of his time in the gym obviously trying to deny the fact that time catches us all. But to go along with his motif he had to have a younger girlfriend with really, really bad fashion taste. I am not sure why anybody would think a woman in a cowboy hat, tiny jean skirt (beaded and painted of course), and leather boots with brass studs would come across as anything but girl with a sugar daddy but obviously he thought somehow that by having her he impressed the rest of us wimpy men.
Of course she was not as bad as the lady who walked by wear a micro skirt and a backless vest that ... well it looked like it was made out of Pomeranians. Either that or somebody had captured some of the furrier Muppets and tried to make them into an article of clothing.
So I guess now like then there are always people trying to impress others with their perceived status and those who flock to them. Thankfully most of the crowd was not like that (I don’t think I worried once about getting stuffed in a locker by the cool kids) and the music was outstanding which more than made up for my trip to Bizarro World.
Oh, and yes being the photo geek I am and also that the “man” could not intimidate me into not taking photos, I took a ton. Here is the link to photos of the concert:
Eagles Concert Photos
Oh, and yes being the photo geek I am and also that the “man” could not intimidate me into not taking photos, I took a ton. Here is the link to photos of the concert:
www.flickr.com/photos/redfoxspirit/sets/72157614320576065/