America (the Band) in Atlanta (04/01/16)....

Disclaimer: I wrote this thing on April 2nd. Just forget to post it. LOL. So it was 4 weeks ago tonight. LOL.

Last night was another one of BBG's concert road trip nights. I had the opportunity to finally see America (the band) in concert. If memory serves me correctly I wrote about their music a couple of years ago and now the circle is complete with this blog. I bought a great seat for this show on one of my concert buying search and buy soirees. You know one of those nights where I've had the opportunity to indulge in my liking of hops and I am looking for concerts in my backyard. LOL. Atlanta is my backyard. I only drove 300 miles round trip for this show. It's like going to the grocery store for regular humanoids.

So anyways I left work a little bit early as the show had a start time of 730pm. At the best of times the drive into Atlanta from the Upstate can be a dicey timing adventure. I'd say about 60% of the drive is on a portion of I85 that is only two lanes wide in both directions. It's truly hit or miss whether or not it will be a smooth drive. Tons of truck traffic on this 225 mile stretch of highway between Charlotte and Atlanta. I kind of lucked out as the weather was pretty much overcast with no rain and miracles of miracles there was not a single wreck or stalled car on the drive south. My trusty Google Maps app was bang on giving me an ETA of around 645pm to cover the 149 miles from HNA. I ended up at Atlanta Symphony Hall as planned and had no issues finding parking. Harrison had given me a heads up on where to park as he had been to the same place for a comedy show a couple weeks prior. Jeune Homme and I both have a penchant for taking semi-long drives to see shows. LOL. We don't only share the height thing it seems. Cool thing was parking was only $10 in one of those mega parking structures that they have in Atlanta. I am used to the usual $20 rate when in the big city.

So I made my way into Symphony Hall which as the name describes it is not a typical concert barn. Jeepers the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is the main tenant of this venue. No frozen margarita concoctions or Fireball shots are to be had at this venue. LOL. I had to settle for a $6 bottle of Beck's beer being served to me by someone dressed as an usher at a formal black tie wedding. Me in my standard canvas cargo shorts was an anomaly here. LOL. There were more than a few blue-haired ladies and yellow pants wearing men that maybe thought that tonight's performance was going to be all about Neil Diamond's song "Coming To America" as opposed to a performance of two of the three original voices of the the 2nd most popular 3-part harmony acts of the early 70s. The 1st band I guess was Crosby, Stills and Nash but for the 4 year period starting in '72 and ending in '75, America had 11 Top 100 hits of which 6 songs hit the Top 10 and 2 of them hit #1 and they could lay claim to being the top American folk rock band of the land.

As I mentioned I had a seat 4 rows from the stage which was totally awesome. I was ready to be entertained and I was not disappointed. America formed in 1970 when three sons of Americans stationed near London met in university. The original band was the triumvirate of Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and the late Dan Peek. Dan Peek was an integral part of the band from 1970 to 1977. He co-wrote and sang lead on 4 of America's hits. These being "Don't Cross The River", "Woman Tonight", "Today's The Day" and the beautiful "Lonely People". Dan left the band in 1977 after going through some health and addiction issues. Gerry and Dewey have been performing together for 46 years. Yikes. That's amazing. You can see and sense their friendship and camaraderie even after all this time as they gently teased each other throughout the evening about the types of music they perform. Gerry does the mushy love stuff ("I Need You" and "Daisy Jane") as Dewey mentioned and Dewey does the spacier druggy songs ("Sandman" and "Green Monkey") as Gerry mentioned. Dewey did mention that his daughter and grandchild were sitting exit stage left as they live in the Atlanta area. He said it was a bit like a homecoming for him visiting his daughter and family.

The setlist contained 19 songs from 8 albums and 1 soundtrack. It featured all of their popular hits throughout the years except for "Muskrat Love". I never did get that song. I for one always thought it was a Captain and Tennile song. LOL. I never got a good vibe just from the title of the song. Muskrats really? Throughout the evening Gerry and Dewey talked about their songs and where they were when they were writing them and what they meant to them. They also talked about the 3 covers that they performed ("California Dreaming", "Woodstock" and "Til I Hear It Again"). The story about being on a triple bill with the Mamas and the Papas and the Beach Boys and all bands performing "California Dreaming" was amusing. America was the first act to hit the stage and as they said they set the bar pretty high with their version of the song. LOL. Dewey and Gerry tour with the bass player Richard Campbell formerly of Three Dog Night who joined the band in 2003 and two relatively new additions since 2014 being drummer Ryland Steen formerly from Reel Big Fish and lead guitarist Bill Worrell who as Gerry put it is in the band to attract cougars to the shows. LOL. Bill is in early to mid-30s and is a great rock guitarist. Dewey and Gerry are very generous and let their band do some solos and have some fun on stage.

Anyways here's the setlist:
1. Tin Man
2. You Can Do Magic
3. Don't Cross The River
4. Daisy Jane
5. Riverside
6. I Need You
7. Ventura Highway
8. Woodstock (Joni Mitchell cover)
9. Cornwall Blank
10. Til I Hear It From You (Gin Blossoms cover)
11. The Border
12. Green Monkey
13. Woman Tonight
14. Only In Your Heart
15. California Dreamin' (The Mamas and the Papas cover)
16. Lonely People
17. Sandman
18. Sister Goldenhair
19. Horse With No Name (encore)

All in all it was a super enjoyable show and a trip down memory lane. Definitely would see them again and again in concert. As Gerry mentioned "we have been doing a 100 shows a year for 46 years and as long as you continue coming to our shows, we will continue to visit your towns". The Kinks released a live album in the early 80s called "Give The People What They Want". America definitely does that!

This Weekend Flew By....

I made it through Monday. It was nice and calm today at work. What a difference an environment can be when certain people aren't around. I was tired walking into work after what may have been my quickest weekend in a long, long while. Yes I know that all weekends consist of around 60 hours.

Well this one seemed way shorter as a lot of it was spent in a car either as a driver or as a passenger as J and I drove up to Youngstown, Ohio to surprise her Mother at her father's side of the family "family reunion. Yes I know wrote the word family back to back. LOL. Even funnier was that her Dad was back home in Hemderson, NV as he couldn't make it back east for the family dinner.

What did I discover this weekend? Well I saw that West Virginia has absolutely beautiful scenery with its' greenery and rolling hills. It isn't the easiest state to drive through because of the Appalachians especially in a 4-cylinder car. It seems to me that no matter what route you take, you are going up and down these ancient mountains.

U.S. Route 19 is a nice route to take though you are stuck driving through towns at

times and have to deal with traffic lights which slows things down. Taking this route though does afford you the opportunity to see the New River Gorge. The bridge that crosses the New River near Fayetteville is the 5th highest vehicular bridge in the world at 876 ft. and is pretty darn cool to see. Until 2004 it was the highest such bridge in the world. We didn't stop on this trip.

The other option in going to Ohio is taking Interstate 77 all the way. We took the W.V. turnpike on the way back as we ended up in a part of Ohio that was closer to 77 than 79 near Pittsburgh on Sunday morning. Only issue is paying $6 in turnpike tolls. Taxpayers' dollars already went to building the Eisenhower interstate highway system. This is a blatant revenue grab and almost as annoying as being on the Maine Turnpike but that one doesn't cost $6 to travel at least. I can't vouch for that 100% as I haven't been on it for a few years now.

Back to the reunion dinner. I found out about it last Wednesday when J was in Aberdeen. She didn't think that she could make it due to her travel schedule but when I found out about it; the decision was made to go to the dinner even though it involved 1200 miles of driving round trip over a weekend.

To see the look on her Mom's face when she first saw J at Johnny's Fine Food & Spirits in Boardman, Ohio was absolutely priceless. She was in total shock and never ever expected her to be there. The only thing that would have made it even cooler was if J's children were there as well. Gives us something to work on for the 5th installment of the Montiori, Mondora & Neopolitain family dinner on July 20th, 2013. I may have spelled the first last name wrong; I'm a Schlewing after all. LOL.

As for the evening it was pretty effing cool even though I am not related to anyone that was there. I was amid five generations of a family that all started back in southern Italy years and years ago that had a member or two emigrate to the States in the late 1800s. I think that the first ones here would be darn proud of their descendants. Among the 60 or so people in the room; there were seven or eight engineers, a doctor or two, a television producer, a teaching nurse, a teacher, an airplane pilot, a couple computer geeks and two men that could have been extras in the Sopranos. That was it. I think I was the only that uses curse words on a regular basis. Dang what is with that? I will have to socialize more next year just to see if there is anyone that can teach me a lesson or two in Italian curse words.