My Low Budget 2018 Summer Concert Experience Begins

After dropping wads of cash to see the Broadway musical Hamilton, my 2018 summer concert budget is shot. If I am going to any concerts this summer, they are going to have to be economical. This ticket’s price seemed perfect for my 2018 concert budget …

The local concert hall in town didn’t sell many tickets for this show, so they were literally peeling off free tickets for anyone who wanted one from a big roll of unsold seats.  That’s twelfth row on the main floor. Not bad. Now as for the show, I arrived late. I had decided to bike to the show. It was downhill most of the way (like my life), so it took me only 12 minutes. Nice.

As I walked into the concert, on stage was the Dave Mason Band. One of the guys looked like he could be Dave Mason, about 30 years ago. It was not. They played for 40 minutes. That gave me about 35 minutes left at the show or I would be biking home in the dark. Ten more minutes passed before Dave Mason and Steve Cropper hobbled onto the stage. I think the poster for their tour looks cool.

Dave Mason on the left looks like a cool cat. In real life, he’s a really old dude on the wrong side of 70.

They played one song together and Mason slowly exited the stage, possibly for oxygen or a stint in a hyperbaric chamber. Steve Cropper introduced and played some old R & B tunes like Knock on Wood. At least I think he introduced the songs. I could not understand a word he said. But I will cut him some slack since he will be 77 later this year. I remember him looking like this in the Blues Brothers movie.

He no longer looks like that, but he still plays a mean guitar. Fifteen minutes of Steve Cropper meant that I was getting close to my departure time. And then, onto the stage slowly walks Dave Mason and plays We Just Disagree, my favorite Mason song, although he did not write it.

Dave Mason has had quite a musical career. He was a founding member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band Traffic. He had a solo career. He was a member of Fleetwood Mac for one album. He did a duet with Michael Jackson. He has had a long career.

From his discography, he could have played any number of songs, but he picked my favorite song of his. It was like he knew it was getting dark and I was on a bike. And he didn’t just play it, he killed it. WOW! It sounded great.

At that point, I decided to leave on that high note. I knew he was going to play some Traffic songs, but that excited me less than biking home in the fading light of day. Somehow I made it home biking mostly uphill in the same 12 minutes. I have no explanation for that except possibly strong quads and an aversion to biking in the dark.

Now you may think that such a concert experience sounds like a disaster. But I got a bike workout, a free concert (albeit truncated), and got to hear my fave Dave Mason song performed live. If you think that, then there’s only you and me and we just disagree.