The Geezers of Pop

(or: Learning the limits of my new iPhone’s ability to take live-event photos.)

These days I usually only venture forth from my office except to go to daycare, the grocery store or physical therapy. What precious time work, parenting and aging disgracefully doesn’t engulf and devour I usually spend torturing my acoustic guitar (see example in post below).

(For instance, my homeopathic clergyman comes to me, but I have been asked to keep mum about that because he is not licensed to practice outside his indigenous state. Which is a shame because I felt tons better after he peppered my lower back with acupuncture needles last weekend. I will instead post a photo to make you glad there is no text accompanying it.)

But The Last Boy Scout, being the Good Egg that he is, drags me out of my cave a couple times a year for a rock or pop show. He’s my Rush buddy, we’ve seen Queen, Iron Maiden, Motorhead together – well, you get the idea.

Last year we went to the local minor-league baseball park in triple-digit heat to watch a lame bill of nostalgia acts including BOC and Eddie Money. It says a lot about how bad BOC was in 2008 that Eddie Money’s set outperformed theirs by a mile.

When he proposed doing it again this year, I was up for it anyhow, just because I recognize the social imperative of getting out and passing for normal at least a couple times a year.

This year’s oldies theme was “The Teen Idol Tour” featuring Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits, Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees and Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and “Indian Reservation” fame (left). Opening was Maxine Nightengale and her Two Big Hits (not talking about her boobs, here) followed by a motley assemblage of background musicians from B-List 70s & 80s bands playing each of their previous outfits’ big hits. For instance, the bass player from the Knack was there, so we got to hear “My Sharona.” Like that.

A bonus this year was the fact that a mutual friend drove out from Florence, AZ to see the show with us. If he could afford it, his personalized license plate would read MARKLINDSAYFAN#1. The man is a walking encyclopedia of useless pop and sports ephemera and we thought it would be a blast to have him with us.

So Maxine and the B-Listers blew through their sets in the wilting Christmas Island summer heat while the three of us hung to the shadows of the concourse and remarked on how many more sweet young things were at this year’s event than last year’s. I even coined a new phrase for the phenomenon: Poonteen. (You can use that, but please be sure to credit me.) For example, can somebody tell me how three tarted-up babes with granddaddy issues below scored backstage passes? Was there a test or something?

Anyhow, the trio of former teen idols came out eventually and did a couple of tunes together before Noone and Dolenz ceded the stage to Lindsay for a quick run-through of the Raiders’ greatest hits, occasionally backed by Noon and Dolenz. To their credit, the three of them seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, with much good-natured banter and interplay between them.

Then it was Dolenz’ turn in the spotlight. Honestly, I’m a huge fan of former Monkee Michael Nesmith. To me, the other three Monkees were like barnacles clinging to his brilliance, so expectations for Dolenz were especially not high. But man, can that guy sing! All three aging popsters turned in fun, energetic sets, but Dolenz really has the pipes.

The last act to hit the stage was Peter Noone who performed a mini-set of the Hermits’ greatest hits, again aided off-and-on by Lindsay and Dolenz. Much to my delight, he even added a cover of Cash’s immortal “Folsom Prison Blues” of which I grabbed a couple minutes of from both way too close (for listenable audio) and way too far away (for viewable video) with my iPhone (see clip, below). Chances are my expensive new Mac Phone works better than the images accompanying this post would indicate and the fault is in operator error, but I had a lot of fun racing down the center aisle and snapping photos till Security cleared the lane again. Lots of us did!



(If anyone out there can tell me how to focus, zoom and/or compensate for shaky camera hands with my iPhone, please leave your instructions in the comments section.)

By night’s end, I had long abandoned my two somnambulant friends (Jesus, even with my fucked-up back, I don’t go to a concert to sit on my ass all night!) and even ended up pulled into a conga line during Noone’s set and making some new friends I’ll never meet again (my favorite kind!).

Bur for my abysmal failure to document it competently, an excellent time was had by this correspondent. If the Teen Idol Tour comes to your town, drop the $40 and go check them out. And oh yeah, everybody else there was shooting the event using their actual cameras, so feel free to bring whatever you’ve got to help you remember the event. The iPhone is great for a lot of things, but apparently photographing live events at night is not one of them.