Kathy and I did something totally crazy last night. Drove in to the Beast around 5:30 and had dinner at Gallo Blanco, then motored down to the Crescent Ballroom to see John Hiatt. I have been a big fan for the past decade but have never had the chance to see him.
A very intimate venue, with a dance floor and small bleachers straight away from the stage, only four tiers high. Of course all those seats were taken. Tickets were $50 each (actually $43, but with tax, etc. it came to $107) and, of course, a plastic cup of cabernet was $10. I was banking on the show starting at eight, over by 9:30 and then an hour drive home, but I had forgotten about the OPENING ACT! What an idiot I am.
John Hiatt took the stage at about 9:15 and never looked back:
Yes, he's wearing a tie, a jacket AND a cool hat. One of the biggest changes in concert going in the past 15 years is photos. Remember when you'd go see a concert and they banned cameras? People had cameras taken away form them and security was on constant vigil looking for flash bulbs and they would pounce on the illegal photo takers. We own our image and you can't come into our house and steal our souls, seemed to be the message. Well, at some point in the past ten years that became absurd with cell phone cameras. At any given point in the entire concert you saw six or seven cell phone cameras stuck in the air recording video and still shots (mostly video). Kathy even took a few photos using my cell phone (the above shot of John being an example). Here we are, dancing in the dark and up way past our bedtime:
The show ended at about 11:15 and on the way to our car I came up behind a couple I recognized. As we passed them I said, "If you ever need photos of the back of your head, let me know. We have a few." They laughed and then, with the magic of cell phone technology, I whipped out my cell phone and showed them this:
Couldn't have done this ten years ago.
"Sixty is the new twelve."
—John Hiatt, responding to his wife who said to him as his sixtieth birthday approached, "sixty is the new forty."
Crazy—this thing called love.
