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FIRST_CONCERT

                                              August 2, 2007
A popular game among college
radio music snobs is "So what
was *your* First Concert?"

   My traditional answer
   is "Hot Tuna", General      HOT_SUFFOLK_FORUM
   Admission at the
   Suffolk Forum.                  That covers the
                                   bases well: slightly
   But really, that's my           embarrassing, a     
   first arena rock                nostalgic hint of
   concert.  Back in those         another time and place.
   days we all regarded
   those as the Real Thing,
   but since then most of
   us (now using a different
   definition of "we")                 For example, around that
   have decided that was               time I saw Harry Chapin
   exactly backwards.                  perform live in my high
                                       school auditorium, but
                                       that didn't count,
     Thinking it over, I               because it was in my
     believe my real                   high school auditorium.
     "first concert" was
     going to see "The                    Looking back at it, it 
     Cartoon Opera" on                    was astoundingly
     multiple occasions,                  cool that Chapin was
     performing in                        willing to do this --
     Huntington's small
     outdoor ampitheater                  Sneer at this as the
     in Hecksher park.                    necessity forced on
                                          him by a declining
     The Cartoon Opera                    career if you like...
     was the performing
     duo of Heather                       The resourcefulness
     Forest and Patrick                   of finding and
     McDermott, dancing                   performing at
     and singing to the                   these kind of
     music performed on                   small venues is
     keyboards off-stage                  really remarkable.     (larger than
     by Billy Batson.                                            a bar, and
                                             The mark of a       accessible to
       (If I remember the                    Real Musician,      the underage).
       name right... I                       as Eugene
       know that sounds a                    Chadbourne
       lot like Captain                      might say.          HATE_THE_MAN
       Marvel's alter-ego,
       but could be that                     No one else was
       was the joke, you                     doing this, declining
       know?).                               career or not.

       This was ostensibly
       music for children --                    The big moment of this
       hence the settings                       performance: he got
       they got to play --                      the girls in the audience
       but they had the                         to sing the chorus on
       knack of doing                           "Cat's in the Cradle",
       work that appealed                       an ethereal sound that
       on different levels.                     haunts me to this day.

       My favorite piece                              (The boys refused,
       alternated readings by                         and shyly sat it out,
       Patrick from an essay                          despite much effort
       by the astronaut Rusty                         on Chapin's part to
       Schweikart with lines                          shame us into it,
       sung by Heather about                          e.g. by referring
       the tale of King                               to "a quality called
       Arthur's Flight.                               'balls' that has nothing
                                                      to do with anatomy").
          The theme: political
          borders are invisible in              And I went home with
          the grand perspective.                the memory of the
                                                girls ethereal voices
          Really brilliant work, with a         drifting through my
          touch of magic to it...               head... and impressed
                                                with Chapin's simple
             Under what deranged                stories set to song.
             system of values
             would this not count               (But I regret to say I don't
             as a "real concert"?               think I ever bought one of his
                                                records...  they're not the
                                                kind of songs you need to hear
                                                more than once, however good
                                                they are the first time.)






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