It’s about Tim

I wish that I was going to Shea’s farewell.

I’m not much of a concert-goer anymore.

I loved going to the big conerts when I was in my teens and twenties - R.E.M, Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden - but at some point I just started losing interest in anything other than smaller jazz or blue grass performances. Maybe it had something to do with the price of tickets, or maybe I’m just an old man. Or maybe there’s this elitist side of me that says “I refuse to be one of those people that pays ever-increasing ticket prices to see the same band they’ve been going to see since they were teenagers.” I mean really, over a hundred bucks to see Aerosmith or Pink Floyd? Get out of here.

I’ve only seen a small number of shows over the last five or six years. Ashley and I went to see Tori Amos several years ago. I love all of our Tori Amos CDs, but somehow the live performance failed to impress me and I did not join the crowd in their shouts for “Encore!” What really draws me to Tori is her piano and I think I might have enjoyed her more if it was just her and the piano without the band. Maybe. Especially if it was in a small bar.

The last big show we saw was Ben Folds, and it was just Ben and his Piano at Davidson University in North Carolina. The show was incredible.Ben is an extremely gifted musician and a performer who really engages the crowd. Somehow he can make a large arena feel like the local pub by getting folks to sing along, I love to sing along, to his often overly-romantic ballads. And again there’s the piano.

Mom played it when I was a kid, mostly church music, but other stuff if I asked - she and I would perform a duet of Ronnie Milsap’s Almost Like A Song which she taught me. Standing beside my mom singing that song with my older sister, Kelli, as the audience is one of the best memories of my childhood.

Somewhere around this time my oldest brother, Brad, taught me how to use his stereo system and gave me permission to use it when he wasn’t home.  I must have been around 6 years old, because Brad had recently added Billy Joel’s The Stranger to his record collection. He had a lot of great music, including the Boss and the Beach Boys, but I would sit forever with headphones listening to Billy Joel, singing along of course. Eventually I grew to like other music, and Billy Joel’s music changed too much for me. Like Elton John and Jefferson Airplane, his newer stuff just didn’t reach me at all. Eventually I considered him irrelevant, but looking back I realize I looked for what he offered originally in other musicians. First with Jackson Browne and later with other bands out of the mainstream - bands like XTC, the Chameleons, even the Smiths who offered intelligent, often sentimental lyrics with comforting melodies. And anyone that knows the two must see the connection between Ben Folds and Billy Joel - I don’t know that Ben has ever admitted or implied influence as he has with Elton John, but I have to believe Joel’s work had a major influence on Folds.

When Ashley and I started driving up to north Jersey from Richmond to scout out a new place to live, I knew exactly what I needed to hear to set the stage. So, here it is a month later and I am still in New York State of Mind. Billy Joel will be playing farewell to the Shea over in Queens and it kills me that I will not be there - when he performs Miami 2017 we might just be able to hear the crowd way over here in Montclair. What I’d really love is to see the show with Brad and Mom, that would be priceless.

Mom and Brad, thanks so much for your early influence on my love for music. Much love to both of you.