So on October 1, 1975, at the tender age of 9, I was allowed to see my first rock concert. Elton John at the Tucson Community Center. I was obsessed with Elton at the time. Even though I was only 9 I had every one of his albums. At the show he told the crowd that he had a new album coming out shortly,
Rock of the Westies. The next day I called the record store to find out the release date. And sure enough, on release date I was at the store to buy it. (On 8-track!). This was the first time I ever made a point of buying an album on release date. I played the tape to death. A decade later I was starting to build a CD collection, a hobby which of course continues to this day. For some reason, I have never purchased
Westies on CD. So I haven't heard the album in decades. Then a few moths ago for Chanukah, my brother gave me the new
Jewel Box compilation. It's got two CDs of Elton's favorites deep cuts, one of which is the
Westies track "Street Kids". OMG, I had forgotten what a killer tune this is. I have been playing it non-stop, and trying to learn to play that really fast piano hook.
An amusing aside, I went to the concert with my brother who was three years older than me. We were allowed to go without adult supervision. Years later, my sister (who is eight years older than me) told me that my parents were hesitant to let me and my brother go to a rock show. They had a vision of rock concerts being all drugs and violence. So they asked my sister, who had seen a few concerts by this time, what went on at concerts. My sister told them that if my brother and I wanted to see The Rolling Stones or The Who that it would be a bad idea. But Elton was a tenny-bopper act; everyone at the concert would be kids our age. So we were allowed to go. Needless to say, the audience was significantly older than we were. No violence, but I did have to ask my brother what that funny cigarette was that the guy a few seats down was smoking. My brother realized that the guy I pointed to was his Spanish teacher. Recently my brother and I were reminiscing about the show. He told me that his Spanish teacher's name was Jon Urban!
@JonUrban, don't suppose you were teaching 8th grade Spanish in Arizona in 1975?
Here's a photo from the Tucson paper:
