Went To A Show Last Night

Went to a show last night.

We actually got out of the house. The neighbors were lined up along the thoroughfare applauding wildly.

"There they go! They're going out to have some fun. Sure wish we were them. Good luck kids - don't stay out too late."

It was heartening.

The show was called Live From Laurel Canyon - Songs and Stories of American Folk Rock.

There were many iconic communities back in the sixties and seventies, places where creative free spirits congregated and lived, and wrote music - Laurel Canyon was one of them.

Some who lived in Laurel Canyon - The Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Neil Young, James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, America, The Eagles - can you imagine what that was like?

It was between 1965 and 1976. These people lived there off and on, coming and going, but meeting up in each other's houses and making music - mixing and matching creativity and insanity.

The show features a band who plays the music of the Laurel Canyon residents. But they also told intimate stories about the groups - about the inspiration behind writing certain songs, or the history of individuals, about the clubs they played in. And, they had a screen behind them flashing pictures of the Canyon, the homes they lived in, the groups, the clubs they played in, various permutations of the people who lived there hanging around each other's houses.

I was absolutely stunned by how deeply this all moved me. Got really emotional. That was a time of hope, a time for believing you could live an interesting life, a time for believing the world could be changed for the better. It was a place in which I wish I had lived.

Of course, I was obnoxious last night because I know 99% of the stories and I like to show off. As the stories got told, I would whisper into Carol's ear the name of the group or person or song the story was heading towards before the narrator did, and of course I was always right. But I did shut up when I noticed that "shut the fuck up" look in Carol's eyes.

When I was a teenager, I said to my parents "I would like to move to Laurel Canyon so I can hang around with David Crosby and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and Jim Morrison and Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt so I can be inspired by them and learn about life from them so my life can evolve into a thing of beauty."

My parents said "No, no, no Little Joey. You will stay here with us and grow up to be an accountant and wear clip-on ties." Sounded exciting, so I stuck around.

Might have been a mistake.

It was a very nice night out. The average age of the audience was 76. Hey, old people gotta have fun too, you know.

It was a homecoming of sorts for me because it was held at the Capitol Center, where I worked off and on for 7 years. Ran into a few people who high-fived me, hugged me, shook my hand - it made me feel better about myself.

So there was that too.