Five concerts worth remembering

Today's list of five is "Five concerts worth remembering."

1. Cheap Trick - Baltimore Civic Center - touring in support of All Shook Up
   Tom Petersson had just left the band and had been replaced by Pete Comita. The concert tee I bought was basically the album cover with Tom replaced by Pete. Ugh... Bun E. Carlos busted a bass drum head and the concert paused while they replaced it. The main reason this concert was memorable: On the floor of the Civic Center they had wooden risers which the chairs were on. As they kicked into "Gonna Raise Hell" the floor shook beneath me. Cheap Trick, the band that had made me want to become a guitar player, now made me want to be a bass player!
2. Big Country - University of Delaware - touring in support of The Crossing
   It was December of my freshman year of college. I hadn't been to a concert since summer. I had seen a couple of Big Country videos on "Friday Night Videos" and thought they were OK. I went to this concert mainly because I was desperate to go to a concert. I didn't care for the opening act. They stunk. Enough said. Big Country, however, blew me away. Though I only knew two songs of theirs, I was greatly impressed with the rest of their set. Their cover of "Tracks Of My Tears" sounded really good too. The next day, I rushed to the local record store and bought the album. (It probably should have made my previous list!)
3. The Alarm - University of Delaware - touring in support of Change
   The other end of my college experience. The Alarm booked a last minute show at UD because their gig of playing on Saturday Night Live had been cancelled because of a writers strike. The Alarm was a lot better in concert than I had expected them to be. I already had the CD, so I didn't need to rush out the next day to buy it.
4. Vigilantes of Love - Truro Church - touring in support of To The Roof Of The Sky
   This was the first time I saw VoL in concert. The most memorable moment of this concert was when Bill stepped away from his microphone to sing "Judas Skin." His unamplified voice filled the church. Sublime!
5. Sam Phillips - 930 Club - touring in support of Martinis and Bikinis
   Martinis and Bikinis ranks up there with The Turning as one of my favorite albums of all time. This was the third time I had seen her in concert. (The fourth if you count the one time while she was still singing CCM pop - although I wasn't really paying attention to that set.) On this tour, T-Bone Burnett was on guitar and Jerry Scheff was on bass. At this point in my life, I was mainly a bass player, and Jerry's work on Sam's CDs made him one of my favorites. I had direct line of sight to his bass amp and could hear every note he played. He did not disappoint. However, my favorite moment of the concert was when Sam came out by herself with an acoustic guitar and played "Answers Don't Come Easy."

Five albums I absolutely had to have

I thought that it might be fun (and might get me to blog more) if I were to start posts on the general theme of "Five Albums that..." or "Five Songs that..." This is my first attempt at such.

Today, I'm starting with five albums I absolutely had to have. They are listed roughly in chronological order...

1. Paul McCartney and Wings - Wings Over America
   I got hooked on Wings long before I realized that Paul had been in a band before that. I have Bozo the Clown to thank for that. The Bozo the Clown show that used to run on Channel 20 in Washington had a feature where kids would send in pictures they had drawn and the show would hang them on the wall and pan over them with music playing in the background. The day that a picture I had draw was shown, "Jet" was the background music. It instantly became my favorite song. Later, I remember having Wings at the Speed of Sound and enjoying that album immensely. When Wings over America came out, I scoured the newspapers and proudly told my parents that I wanted to get the album and that Korvette's had it cheaper than any one else. It was a bit more of a drive than K-Mart and maybe my parents needed something else at Korvette's that day, but they drove me to get it.
2. Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick at Budokan
   "I want you... to want... me!" Those words changed my life. I bought the single for IWYTWM and played it over and over and over again. I flipped it over and listened to "Clock Strikes Ten" over and over and over. I saved my allowance for a couple of weeks so that I could buy the whole album. At that point in life I was pretty much a singles collector because they were under a dollar and I could rarely wait to collect enough allowance to spend eight dollars on a full album. But after enjoying both sides of the IWYTWM single so much, I had to have this one. I loved it from start to finish. This is the album that made me want to become a guitar player. I own many different variations of it nowadays: the original CD, Budokan II, the complete concert CD, the 30th anniversary...
3. Leslie Phillips - The Turning
   I had heard Leslie Phillips on Christian radio and prior to the release of The Turning, I had pretty much written her off as too poppy for my musical tastes. When The Turning was released, I have absolutely no thought to picking it up. But, at the end of the year, Richard Harrington of The Washington Post named it as one of the five best of the year. This picqued my curiosity. He said (and I paraphrase extensively) it's a shame it was marketed as a Christian CD and so few people got to hear it. Well, I went to Kemp Mill Records to buy a copy. I was not disappointed. The songs were great. The production fantastic. The bass playing by Jerry Scheff amazing. This remains one of my favorite CDs today.
4. Stryper - The Yellow and Black Attack
   I might have #3 and #4 reversed in order, but I don't care. I first heard one of the songs off of this on the Saturday night Christian rock radio program while I was in college. I think I heard "From Wrong To Right" first. I liked it. Then I heard more songs "Loud N Clear" and "C'Mon Rock" I really liked it. This was in the days when I'd take songs off the radio. One tape I had going had these songs on it and I listened to it over and over. I don't recall if I finally found the casette for this in one of the record stores in town or if I had to mail order it, but I had to have it. Even though it only had six songs, I bought it. And then I bought it again when I wore out the first casette. A while later, when I finally found it on CD, I bought that too.
5. Vigilantes of Love - Audible Sigh
   At this time in my life, VoL was easily my favorite band. An old college friend had gotten me hooked. He started my off with Welcome To Struggleville. I later picked up Blister Soul. I remember finding a used copy of Driving The Nails on the day I bought my wife's engagement ring. I was excited to read that Audible Sigh was going to be released on a new mainstream label. I would read on VOL-List about what people who had gotten the prerelease thought of it. Then, the label folded. The pre-release copies started going for exorbitant amounts of money on eBay. When it finally came out and I could buy it, I snapped it up right away. Now, I have three of the four different versions of it in my collection. I had to have it and it was worth it!

B is for Banjo

Banjo, yep, I own one. It's hiding in a closet somewhere. I bought a used banjo many years ago because I thought it would be neat to try and play Cheap Trick songs on the banjo. I don't think I ever got very far with that. Oh, well, it seemed like a cool idea at the time. I used it once in church when we did a song from Jars of Clay's Redemption Songs. I honestly can't remember the last time I played it. Maybe I should pick it up one day soon...

An Officer, a gentleman... and a Sargeant

In this post, I will attempt a magic trick, whereby I will combine three separate stories to make one point. Two of these stories are real and one is fictional - although I dare to say "It could happen." So without any further ado, pay no attention to the rabbit in the hat and let me begin with my act!

A year or two ago, with my wife and sons in the car with me, I got pulled over for failing to come to a complete stop before turning right on red. From my perspective, I stopped, saw that I was clear to make the turn and made the turn. The county police officer in the car behind me didn't quite see it that way. As the officer and I chatted, I asked him what constituted a complete stop. He told me "about two seconds." I don't know whether that is statutory or a matter of opinion, but he was the one with the badge and the ticket book and I wasn't. Thankfully, he only gave me a warning and we drove the remaining mile or so to get home. As I mentioned my two sons were in the car at the time. As a father, my primary purpose when with them is to train them up to be godly young men. One of the primary ways I do that is by trying to model a life I would want them to imitate. After all, they are both still at an age that wanting to be like Daddy is a good thing. With that in mind, since I got that warning, I've tried to be diligent at counting out "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" every time I've been making a right on red. I want my actions to be in keeping with my primary purpose.

A week ago Sunday, I played bass in the worship band at our church. After service, several people mentioned that I sounded good. After realizing that everyone who mentioned that was also a fellow musician and each of them count bass as one of the instruments they play, I at least was able to belay my concerns that my playing had been a little too conspicuous. But that did get me to reflect some on my purpose when up on the platform as part of the worship team. My purpose is not to draw attention to myself but to draw attention to Christ. Though I love to hear my fellow bass players when they play cool stuff, I'd hate for any of our bass playing to be the focus of the worship service. Now suppose someone had come up to me after the service and said "it sounded like you threw a little bit of 'Gonna Raise Hell' by Cheap Trick into one of those songs..." and then before I could grinning continued "... it was totally inappropriate." Ugh... Now, Cheap Trick at Budokan was what motivated me to play guitar in the first place and "Gonna Raise Hell" (from Dream Police) is what motivated me to play bass. If I had worked "Gonna Raise Hell" into the background of a worship song (I haven't) and somebody said something about it being appropriate (nobody has), I could have said "I'm just expressing who I am and God used that to help lead me into areas where I'm now serving Him. You may think it's inappropriate but I don't see it that way." (But officer, I came to what I thought was a complete stop!) When playing in the worship team, I need to keep my focus on the primary purpose of why I'm there: to glorify Christ and to draw attention to Him and not to me. So, if I can accomplish my primary purpose and still have fun with my playing, that's great, but if my playing gets in the way - not good.

It can be done. Sgt. Pepper tells me so. For my birthday, I got a copy of Sgt. Pepper Live DVD. Back in 2007 in Hollywood, Cheap Trick accompanied by a philharmonic orchestra and a few special guest stars performed the entire Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album live at the Hollywood Bowl to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic Beatle's albums release. Last year with a different orchestra and different guest stars they did it again in New York. The primary purpose of the performances was as a tribute to the Beatles - it wasn't intended as a normal Cheap Trick performance. Rick Nielsen played a custom guitar with pictures of the Beatles on it, Robin Zander effortlessly mimiced John Lennon and Ringo Starr's singing style (he didn't nail Paul McCartney but still sounded good), Tom Peterson nailed Paul's bass parts, and Bun E Carlos rocked Ringo's drum parts. The orchestra (and guest musicians) filled in the holes (or should I say they were fixing the holes?). Overall, it sounded phenomenal to me. Geoff Emerick, who had engineered the original Sgt. Pepper, co-produced the DVD. The first time I watched "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" I remember thinking Rick played a cool guitar lick as they were ending the song. The second time through, I paused and thought "wait a moment" and listened again to the end. Oh wow, I thought, they snuck in a bit of "Oh, Claire" to end the song. If you weren't familiar with the Cheap Trick track, you probably wouldn't have noticed it, but I did. It fit in perfectly and did not detract from "Lucy." Purpose of paying tribute to the Beatles, check, sneaking in a little bit for the CT fans, check! It's all good!