The Oppenheimer Report - 12/1/14

I’m writing this week’s report a bit early as tomorrow we will be otherwise occupied. We are headed down to Toronto to see the legendary Cat Stevens perform at Massey Hall. Since I was a young teenager, I have enjoyed listening to Cat Stevens’ songs, but I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to see him perform live. The album Tea for the Tillerman is one of my favorite albums of all time. It is part of the sound track of my life. Cat Stevens, or Yusef Islam as he now calls himself, does not do a lot of touring in North America, and he does not make it easy to attend one of his concerts. When we purchased our seats to his performance, we were not issued a ticket, but instead a complicated list of instructions for admission. We thought the emphasis on a paperless transaction was an environmental thing, but in fact this complicated admission process is designed to make scalping next to impossible. One must come to the concert with picture identification and the credit card with which one purchase the seats. The person who buys the ticket has to be the one attending the concert with his or her acknowledged guest.  We were told we will be thoroughly frisked for any kind of recording devices, and there is a list of other restrictions, including the maximum size of a woman’s purse allowed! While I am put off by all of this, I am curious to see how it works out, and we really want to see this rare concert. The Stevens concert in New York City was actually cancelled, I believe because NYC by-laws conflicted with these Draconian requirements.
 

There are certain bands and musicians that are/were on my “bucket list” to see. Cat is certainly on that list. So were the Rolling Stones. I finally saw them when they passed through Toronto in ‘97-‘98 on the Bridges to Babylon tour. I had low expectations for the concert, because the Stones were by then well past their prime, but they rocked the house. Yes, Jagger did strut around “like aging poultry” to use Letterman’s description, but they still rocked. I take the Stones with a grain of salt, because they play up the rock royalty thing a bit too much, and they really should throw in the towel, but I have always had great respect for their songwriting ability. They wrote Jumpin’ Jack Flash, for heaven’s sake, one of the best rock anthems of all times. The (original) Who were another band I expected to cross off my bucket list, and back around 1977 I drove from Hartford to Boston to see them, when they were scheduled to play the Boston Garden. Regrettably, drummer Keith Moon was so drunk that after stumbling through one or two songs, lead singer Daltry announced that Keith “had the flu,” and the concert was called off. The Boston fans were not amused and began to break up the seats. I never got to see the rescheduled concert, but having seen videos of some of their live concerts, I’m not all that broken up about it. In 1994, as a wedding present to Shauna and me, Shauna’s brother Jordan gave us excellent tickets to see Pink Floyd when they played the Ex in Toronto. That was a wonderful concert; those guys know how to put on a show. I’d like to have seen the Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Nirvana, but sadly I never will. I never wanted to see the Beatles, because in my opinion they could never have lived up to their studio performances. I would love to have seen George Harrison play as a solo act. Some other performers I regret I never got a chance to see are: Little Feat, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Cream, J.J. Cale, Bob Dylan (30 years ago), The Band, and The Jefferson Airplane. I have been fortunate to see many good acts throughout the years, and thanks to You Tube, I can at least see what I missed.

 

Tomorrow, Shauna and I will submit to what will likely seem like prison security in order to attend the Cat Stevens concert. He’s been the focus of a lot of bad press over the years, but I think perhaps much of it stems from Islamaphobia.  I am not attending his concert because of his religion or politics. I do not pretend to know whether he is a good man or a bad man, although I certainly would not trust the press or the government to decide that for me. I want to see the songwriter whose songs speak of peace and tranquility, and I want to see this legendary songwriter perform Father and Son, one of my all time favorite songs.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED