It may seem that all of a sudden I am being rather prolific in blog postings. I was given my marching orders the other day by J just before she left for Aberdeen, Scotland to straighten out those oil and gas people over there. My mandate it seems to post blogs daily while she is gone for two weeks.
I have couple in draft form so I will be able to do that for the next couple days but there are no promises after that. I could write about those numbnuts and numbnutettes in the Republican Party. They do provide daily fodder to be contradicted by all sane peoples of the physical world. Key word there being sane.
Anyways I'm not posting comments on Huffington Post right now so I will refrain from raising my blood pressure and dumbing down my intellect to respond to the hogwash vitriol spewed by the righties on that website.
I will instead focus on the positive in life and relate my experience at the Eddie Money show at the Charter Amphitheater on the Sunday night of the Memorial Day weekend.
That weekend was the Freedom Aloft event that has been taking place in Simpsonville for the last few years after moving up from Anderson due to low attendance figures I believe. The raison d'etre for this event is the big hot air balloon festival and competition that they have at Heritage Park (home of the amphitheatre) which is about 3 miles south as the crow flies from my house. Given that I am human it's about 4 miles away to get there on Grandview, Fairview and then Main St. in my car. LOL.
The event started on the Friday but J and I had headed downtown to see the bands from Scotland that were playing at Downtown Alive. They were having the Scottish Highland Games out at Furman University that same weekend and we caught this really cool drum band's set in front of the Hyatt downtown.
While we there H was home hanging out with a friend or two on the back deck when all of a sudden the sky overhead was filled with hot air balloons looking for places to land. About 4 houses down from my house at the intersection of Neely Ferry Rd. and Chinaberry Ln. there's a rather large grassy space that is maintained somewhat by the owner of that piece of property. It turns out that 5 of these hot air balloons landed there while others landed on in the church yard down the street as well as in the Food Lion parking lot where H works. It seems that when these balloons start their descent they really have to continue with their landings. H took a bunch of pictures with his phone but they really didn't come out too clear. You'd need a decent camera with wide view lens to get the real scope of this landing event. It just doesn't work on objects of larger scale.
Anyways J and I kind of figured that we would go see these balloons when we went over on Sunday for the Eddie Money show. That Saturday we did the usual taking care of respective abodes and then J came over for some burgers or chicken on the grill for supper and then the plan was to go to Fountain Inn and see a bluegrass band at the train depot.
We were supposed to head there with Carolyn and Amos from next door but Carolyn wasn't feeling too great. She had been out working on her yard from daybreak it seemed and it had gotten hot during the day. I think she is trying to get nominated for a photo spread in Southern Home & Garden with the time and effort that she spends on the outdoor layout of their property. For a lady in her 60s after a couple of major medical heart procedures she does work her derriere off.
So anyways J and I set off on the road to Fountain Inn to listen to some live music and partake perhaps in a beverage or two. Hehe. Well we get onto Georgia Rd. to get to interstate 385S when all of sudden J goes Tattoo from Fantasy Island on me and starts yelling balloons, balloons, balloons as she is craning to see them through the windshield. The problem is that she is driving and the car is kind of veering to the left and to the right as she tries to see all the 30 or so hot air balloons that are flying overhead. In her defense everybody else that was driving a car in that area was doing the same darn thing. It isn't every day that a spectacle like this occurs.
So we made the executive decision to get off the highway at the next exit and back track to see where these balloons were going to land. They were heading right back to my neighborhood again and I wanted to see this for myself like H had the previous night. Suffice to say that J was like a kid in a candy store and the word balloons just kept on coming out her mouth. It was her Raymond Babbitt moment. LOL.
We ended up back at my place in a jiff and there were the balloons overhead maybe 30-40 ft overhead trying to avoid electrical wires. One of them landed in the forest behind my house. Not exactly a good spot to land given the trees that are growing back rapidly after being cleared a couple years before but the balloon had to land and land they did.
Just up the street or down the street from me is a plastics distribution company that has quite a bit of landing space and it seemed to be a good place for several of these balloons. That's where we headed next from my house. It's only a minute or two away. Quite a few balloons were in the process of landing and that is quite something to see. Before you know it they are weighted down to the ground and the owners start packing them up. All of a sudden a bunch of 4x4s show up in the area and they are here to pick up these hot air balloons to bring them back to Heritage Park I guess for the next morning's liftoffs. Inside of a half hour it's like you were in a dream sequence as there is no evidence of the balloons having landed. LOL. Except of course for all of us with our crappy cellphone pictures. Ha!
So back to Eddie Money. Hmmmm. Did I ever really start talking about Eddie Money in this blog? Given his name in the title I better pitter patter and let's get at her. I inadvertently met Eddie Money in the early 90s at a Friday afternoon meeting. It was the strangest thing. He was in Montreal opening up for either Bon Jovi or Aerosmith or Cheap Trick. At that time I had the vinyl copy of Eddie Money's self-titled debut album from 1977 which had the classic "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets To Paradise". Later on I had and still in cassette format "Greatest Hits: The Sound of Money".
As I mentioned earlier Eddie Money was playing the Sunday of the long weekend concert series held in conjunction with Freedom Weekend Aloft. Earlier acts in the series were Gavin Degraw, Colby Caillat, Jake Owen and Outshyne. A little bit for everyone's tastes. They also had kid's zone with rides and games. Tons of food vendors. A dog frisbee competition as well a 5k walk and run to go along with the hot air balloons.
Having seen lots of them land, J and I were really looking forward to seeing them lift off all at the same. Unfortunately there was one cloud in the area a few miles north that was carrying lots of electricity or something and it was supposedly heading right towards us. Sadly the balloons never did lift off on that Sunday night.
So off J and I went to grab a bite to eat and couple beers and scope out a place to sit ourselves down on the amphitheater lawn.
I've always been a fan so I know a lot of his material. What I completely forgot over time is how many hits he had. It was like I know this song. I know that song. Before you knew it I knew three quarters of the set list.
He opened with "Baby Hold On" his first hit from 1977 which led into "Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star" also from his debut album. This then led to "Walk On Water" which is a great singalong song from 1988 that showcases I feel this is the atypical Eddie Money sound. Strong vocals, driving drums, guitar riffs, saxophone bits and a catchy chorus. Next up was the catchy title track from his 4th album released in 1982 titled "No Control."
A total change of pace followed which was the ballad "One More Soldier" that was released in 2011 and was written as a tribute to the men and women that have made the ultimate sacrifice for the country they serve. 100% of the proceeds from this iTune release were going to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Class move by the Money Man.
The next song was one that I had never heard before from his 3rd album "Playing for Keeps" released in 1980 called "Trinidad". That was followed up by the recognizable minor hit "Gimme Some Water" from the the "Playing For Keeps" album. He then went back to his debut and sang the Smokey Robinson song "You've Really Got A Hold On Me." Things slowed for a bit with 1992's "I'll Get By" which was his last charting hit which peaked at 21 on the Billboard charts.
At this point, J decided to try to get closer to get some pics of Eddie and the band and it turns out that we could move from the lawn right up to the front of the stage as the concert had no premium seat extra charge. You could sit or stand wherever you wanted. So off we went to with 10 feet of the stage where we could dance and sing along with the hundreds of the others in front of the stage. That was pretty effing cool!
Eddie then dug deep into his material and brought the torch song called "Call On Me" from 1978's "Life For The Taking". This gave him a chance to rest up a bit while the lead guitarist dazzled with a couple of bluesy riff solos. Next up was "Take A Little Bit" from "No Control" which features some nifty piano keyboard riffs.
Then the concert went into the home stretch starting with 1986's "We Should Be Sleeping" which led into the classic Ronnie Spector-Eddie Money duo song "Take Me Home Tonight" also from 1986's "Can't Hold Back". The only difference was that the people in the front of the stage including J and I were singing the Ronnie Spector part. This song gave Eddie another chance to play some saxophone licks. This then led into the immediately recognizable "Think I'm In Love". Another one of those MTV staples from way back in 1982. This then led into the final song of the show before his encore which was the classic "Two Tickets To Paradise". A great song to end the show. Everybody was singing and dancing. So cool. For the encore Eddie brought out his teen-aged son to play the drums on another MTV staple from the 80s "Shakin". Great job by the kid.
As for the Money Man. He gave it his all at this show. Set lasted between 75 to 90 minutes of non-stop movement by this 63 yr. old rocker. Between the strutting, the singing, the sax-playing he puts rockers half his age to shame. Great performance.
One of the great things that happened after the show was having an opportunity to have a meet and greet with Eddie Money. J got an Eddie Money t-shirt signed by him and I got an 8x10 glossy also signed by him. For days after the show, the songs just came back over and over in my mind especially when I started typing this blog weeks ago. I finally cleaned it up and posted it.
Rock on Eddie rock on!
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