Santana
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 2 June 2005
Mike called and asked, “Dad, do you want to go the Santana concert with me?”
Well, sure, why not? I wasn’t quite sure who Santana was, although the name did sound familiar. Frankly, I am not up-to-date with the current crop of musicians. This is probably due to the fact that I pretty much stopped listening to current performers by the 1970’s, as popular music seemed to had gone into a serious decline (think “disco”) from which it has never recovered (think “rap”).
I am not certain of the exact moment that I stopped listening, it may even have been in the mid-1960’s. I know that I stopped before the band named Pink Floyd became popular, as my cousin Dolores told me many years ago that she was a Pink Floyd fan, and I remember thinking that I had never heard of them.
Mike said Santana would be performing in Miami, at the American Airlines Arena. I got online to find directions. Hmmm, so this is where the Miami Heat basketball team plays its home games. Parking can be as much as $25? Who does Miami think it is . . . Manhattan?
As the time approached to drive to Miami, I realized I had better get dressed for the concert. What did people wear to concerts nowadays? The last song concert I had attended had been in 1982 – an outdoor performance in Michigan by Linda Ronstadt. I realized I didn’t know much about concert wear, due to my lack of recent participation. The only concerts I had ever attended were the two Linda Ronstadt concerts (the other one was in Sante Fe), a Janis Joplin concert in Edwardsville, IL, several Tanglewood performances in Massachusetts, and a Rickie Lee Jones concert in Royal Oak, Michigan. With the exception of the Rickie Lee Jones concert, which was in a small old movie theater - the type that had a combination stage and movie screen - all of these experiences were outdoors, at night, so one dressed in picnic style as would be appropriate for reclining on a blanket spread out on the grass.
But, tonight’s concert would be indoors, so maybe it was dressier? I considered wearing one of my Thomas Pink shirts, which I had bought in London. No, maybe that was too dressy. How about a simple, long-sleeved blue oxford cotton button-down collar dress shirt, slacks, and black loafers? Simple and casual – should be perfect.
As Michael and I drove the 45 miles south to Miami, we noticed some new construction. Boomers had erected a roller coaster in Ft. Lauderdale. The Velda Farms Dairy had painted their water tower so that it appeared to be filled with milk. The block of old rental homes that had been painted neon yellow (their owner had gotten a good price on neon yellow paint) had disappeared (or repainted).
Exiting I-95 at NW 8th in Miami, we followed the signs to AA Arena. As we approached, we saw signs advertising off-street parking. $5, $10, $15, the signs were increasing in five dollar increments as we approached the arena. Now, we were very close to the AA Garage, and street parking was up to $30. What would it be in the garage? We never found out, as a sign at the garage said it was full. We doubled back two blocks to the $15 parking and walked to the arena, passing panhandlers, ticket scalpers, and slow-walking concert attendees. I turned off my cell phone and advised Michael to do the same. We wouldn’t want to interrupt everyone’s enjoyment of the concert by disrupting it with unexpected in-coming calls.
As we passed through the security check and entered the arena, I noticed that most of the attendees were dressed more casually than I – many were wearing shorts and Santana t-shirts. The man behind me was wearing a dress. I guess I shouldn’t have worried about the dress code.
The concert was starting as we arrived, but it was only the opening band, whomever they were, and we had not had time to eat dinner, so I suggested we have hamburgers before going into the seating area. Mike liked that idea. As we waited in line to order, I couldn’t help noticing how loudly the opening act was playing. Bear in mind that we were not yet in the seating area. Were indoor music concerts LOUD? As I carried our cardboard tray of Fuego burgers, French fries, and sodas to the condiment table, I noticed that the cardboard tray was vibrating from the sounds coming from inside the arena. What must it be like inside?
Mike and I stood at a table near the condiment area and ate – the Fuego burgers were good. An animated blonde and two guys were standing at the table next to us. The blonde was wearing a tank top that said “Los Lonely . . . something” I couldn’t read the rest, as whatever followed “Lonely” had disappeared around the hugely ample curvature of her tank top.
As I was wondering what the rest of her shirt said, she did something rather startling. She reached down into her shirt, grabbed as much of her right breast as she could hold in one hand, and hoisted it to upper-deck seating, as it were. Then, she repeated the procedure with the other side, all with the casualness and aplomb of a Michael Jackson crotch grab. She hadn’t even paused in her animated conversation with the two guys at her table. As they exited, she turned, and I saw that the dark side of the moon had said “Boys.” So the message was “Los Lonely Boys,” whatever that meant.
The blonde and the two guys left and were replaced by a guy and a young woman in a blue halter top who was even more dramatically endowed than the blonde. What was in the water in Miami? Not that I was complaining. I wondered if any adjustments would be made, but none were. Michael had gotten some ice cream, but he couldn’t finish it, so we went into the seating area, aisle 112, lower deck row 32, seats 1 and 2.
The opening act was still playing, and were they LOUD! When the bass guitarist got busy, the sound percussions slammed into my chest. For some reason, I thought of Nicola Tesla’s experiments in using pulses of sound to split the earth, which was in his opinion nothing more than a giant acoustic device. Fortunately, the actual splitting of the earth would require exquisitely timed repetitions of sounds, and these were probably not in synch with tonight’s performance. Leaning over to Michael, I shouted that it might not have been necessary to turn off our cell phones.
The opening band included two guitarists, one of whom was whirling like a dervish. He was hopping up and down and spinning in complete circles as he played. Then they stood very close to each other and crab-walked sideways across the stage all the way to one end and then back, playing guitars all the way. Next, they turned their backs to the audience and put their guitars behind them, across the tops of their shoulders, and played as if they were being crucified.
At the conclusion of their act, one of the guitarists rambled on about how playing here, with Santana in Miami, had been a prayer coming true for Los Lonely Boys. What? These were Los Lonely Boys? It was all starting to make sense now . . . how blind I had been.
Now there was an intermission before Santana would appear. Mike wanted to see what was at the Santana Souvenir Stand. Surprisingly, it had t-shirts, pins, and baseball-style caps, emblazoned with logos of Santana or Los Lonely Boys. Mike gazed longingly at the baseball-style Santana hats. Never mind that he has more hats than Imelda Marcos has shoes, Mike is a collector, and I knew that he needed a souvenir hat. $25. This was starting to remind me of those credit card ads on TV . . . “Parking, $15; Fuego burgers, fries, soda and ice cream, $27, yet another souvenir hat, priceless.
There was a long line at the souvenir stand. I suggested that we wait until after the next show had begun. We went back in. Seated directly in front of us was a Latino couple. The woman was young and had been raised on Miami drinking water. The man was older, with pomaded salt-and-pepper hair, combed straight back. Whispering, I asked Michael if he thought I should pomade my hair. He seemed to recoil from the idea, but I thought the look seemed to be working for the guy in front of me. His young girlfriend seemed to agree. I thought of those TV ads for a hair product that hides grey hair from the ladies. The ex-jock commentators in the ads react with glee as the salt-and-pepper man is rejected by some young hottie whom he approaches in a bar.
“No play for Mr. Grey!,” they chortle. Later, Mr. Grey ducks into the men’s room, where he dabs some shoe polish on his whited beard, and upon his return, he is sexually assaulted by the young hottie, who fails to recognize that she had rejected him only moments before. I hate that ad.
Suddenly, I noticed that Mr. Grey and I were definitely in the salt-and-pepper minority tonight. I mentioned this to Michael. No, he could see another white-haired guy over there, motioning vaguely.
“Where?,” I asked.
“ In the orange seats,” Mike said.
“Aren’t all of the seats orange?,” I queried.
“No, we are in the red zone. Our seats are red. Above us, the seats are orange,” he said.
I wonder how many things I miss, being color-challenged. I hadn’t even noticed that there was another level of seats above us, so I guess I can’t blame colors for everything.
Santana and his band came onstage. He was wearing white pants, a white Mexican style loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt, and a black toque. Eight musicians and a singer accompanied him.
Two numbers into their show, the electric organ player hit some catchy beat, and one-by-one the women in the audience were charmed, pied-piper like, out of their seats and they began dancing and writhing rhythmically as they stood. Mr. Grey’s girlfriend could not resist. She was a good dancer, as energetic as she was limber. Now, some of the guys began to stand and dance too.
I pretended that I was about to join in. Mike was horrified. I was just kidding, but he wasn’t so sure.
This seemed to be a good time to buy the souvenir cap. We exited and bought a grey one in a matter of minutes, as the line had disappeared. Returning to our seats, we found a man sitting in one of them. I motioned to him to leave, and he pointed to someplace else where we should sit. I pointed to my ticket and then motioned that he should leave. It was too loud to talk. He departed, and we sat down again. Mike beamed as he adjusted his new Santana cap. He was having a great time.
The concert was a good one. We particularly enjoyed a song called “Smooth,” and another one in which a young woman was exhorted to change her evil ways.
At the end of the show, there was an encore in which Santana introduced each member of his band, and each one played something for us. As this was happening, a man came onstage, walked up to Santana and pointed to himself, as if asking that he be recognized next. Santana seemed to hesitate. Then Security came onstage and hustled the guy off. Recovering his voice, Santana said he wished he had some of whatever that guy was on.
As we exited the AA Arena that night, we had a great view of the Miami skyline. The weather was perfect, and Michael and I were in great moods. Maybe I would start listening to contemporary music again. This Santana guy wasn’t too bad!
Suddenly, I noticed that I couldn’t hear as well as normal. The pounding decibels in the arena had affected my hearing in much the same way as a too-rapid change in airplane cabin pressure, only now I couldn’t fix the problem by “popping” my ears. I assumed the hearing loss was only temporary, and it was.
The drive home was only slightly marred by a bumper-to-bumper slow down between exits 42 and 44 of I-95. As far as I could tell, it was all caused by drivers pausing to rubberneck at some road construction workers who were merely sitting on large cans on the flatbed of a truck.
They’ve got to change their evil ways . . . or just forget about it.
Mike called and asked, “Dad, do you want to go the Santana concert with me?”
Well, sure, why not? I wasn’t quite sure who Santana was, although the name did sound familiar. Frankly, I am not up-to-date with the current crop of musicians. This is probably due to the fact that I pretty much stopped listening to current performers by the 1970’s, as popular music seemed to had gone into a serious decline (think “disco”) from which it has never recovered (think “rap”).
I am not certain of the exact moment that I stopped listening, it may even have been in the mid-1960’s. I know that I stopped before the band named Pink Floyd became popular, as my cousin Dolores told me many years ago that she was a Pink Floyd fan, and I remember thinking that I had never heard of them.
Mike said Santana would be performing in Miami, at the American Airlines Arena. I got online to find directions. Hmmm, so this is where the Miami Heat basketball team plays its home games. Parking can be as much as $25? Who does Miami think it is . . . Manhattan?
As the time approached to drive to Miami, I realized I had better get dressed for the concert. What did people wear to concerts nowadays? The last song concert I had attended had been in 1982 – an outdoor performance in Michigan by Linda Ronstadt. I realized I didn’t know much about concert wear, due to my lack of recent participation. The only concerts I had ever attended were the two Linda Ronstadt concerts (the other one was in Sante Fe), a Janis Joplin concert in Edwardsville, IL, several Tanglewood performances in Massachusetts, and a Rickie Lee Jones concert in Royal Oak, Michigan. With the exception of the Rickie Lee Jones concert, which was in a small old movie theater - the type that had a combination stage and movie screen - all of these experiences were outdoors, at night, so one dressed in picnic style as would be appropriate for reclining on a blanket spread out on the grass.
But, tonight’s concert would be indoors, so maybe it was dressier? I considered wearing one of my Thomas Pink shirts, which I had bought in London. No, maybe that was too dressy. How about a simple, long-sleeved blue oxford cotton button-down collar dress shirt, slacks, and black loafers? Simple and casual – should be perfect.
As Michael and I drove the 45 miles south to Miami, we noticed some new construction. Boomers had erected a roller coaster in Ft. Lauderdale. The Velda Farms Dairy had painted their water tower so that it appeared to be filled with milk. The block of old rental homes that had been painted neon yellow (their owner had gotten a good price on neon yellow paint) had disappeared (or repainted).
Exiting I-95 at NW 8th in Miami, we followed the signs to AA Arena. As we approached, we saw signs advertising off-street parking. $5, $10, $15, the signs were increasing in five dollar increments as we approached the arena. Now, we were very close to the AA Garage, and street parking was up to $30. What would it be in the garage? We never found out, as a sign at the garage said it was full. We doubled back two blocks to the $15 parking and walked to the arena, passing panhandlers, ticket scalpers, and slow-walking concert attendees. I turned off my cell phone and advised Michael to do the same. We wouldn’t want to interrupt everyone’s enjoyment of the concert by disrupting it with unexpected in-coming calls.
As we passed through the security check and entered the arena, I noticed that most of the attendees were dressed more casually than I – many were wearing shorts and Santana t-shirts. The man behind me was wearing a dress. I guess I shouldn’t have worried about the dress code.
The concert was starting as we arrived, but it was only the opening band, whomever they were, and we had not had time to eat dinner, so I suggested we have hamburgers before going into the seating area. Mike liked that idea. As we waited in line to order, I couldn’t help noticing how loudly the opening act was playing. Bear in mind that we were not yet in the seating area. Were indoor music concerts LOUD? As I carried our cardboard tray of Fuego burgers, French fries, and sodas to the condiment table, I noticed that the cardboard tray was vibrating from the sounds coming from inside the arena. What must it be like inside?
Mike and I stood at a table near the condiment area and ate – the Fuego burgers were good. An animated blonde and two guys were standing at the table next to us. The blonde was wearing a tank top that said “Los Lonely . . . something” I couldn’t read the rest, as whatever followed “Lonely” had disappeared around the hugely ample curvature of her tank top.
As I was wondering what the rest of her shirt said, she did something rather startling. She reached down into her shirt, grabbed as much of her right breast as she could hold in one hand, and hoisted it to upper-deck seating, as it were. Then, she repeated the procedure with the other side, all with the casualness and aplomb of a Michael Jackson crotch grab. She hadn’t even paused in her animated conversation with the two guys at her table. As they exited, she turned, and I saw that the dark side of the moon had said “Boys.” So the message was “Los Lonely Boys,” whatever that meant.
The blonde and the two guys left and were replaced by a guy and a young woman in a blue halter top who was even more dramatically endowed than the blonde. What was in the water in Miami? Not that I was complaining. I wondered if any adjustments would be made, but none were. Michael had gotten some ice cream, but he couldn’t finish it, so we went into the seating area, aisle 112, lower deck row 32, seats 1 and 2.
The opening act was still playing, and were they LOUD! When the bass guitarist got busy, the sound percussions slammed into my chest. For some reason, I thought of Nicola Tesla’s experiments in using pulses of sound to split the earth, which was in his opinion nothing more than a giant acoustic device. Fortunately, the actual splitting of the earth would require exquisitely timed repetitions of sounds, and these were probably not in synch with tonight’s performance. Leaning over to Michael, I shouted that it might not have been necessary to turn off our cell phones.
The opening band included two guitarists, one of whom was whirling like a dervish. He was hopping up and down and spinning in complete circles as he played. Then they stood very close to each other and crab-walked sideways across the stage all the way to one end and then back, playing guitars all the way. Next, they turned their backs to the audience and put their guitars behind them, across the tops of their shoulders, and played as if they were being crucified.
At the conclusion of their act, one of the guitarists rambled on about how playing here, with Santana in Miami, had been a prayer coming true for Los Lonely Boys. What? These were Los Lonely Boys? It was all starting to make sense now . . . how blind I had been.
Now there was an intermission before Santana would appear. Mike wanted to see what was at the Santana Souvenir Stand. Surprisingly, it had t-shirts, pins, and baseball-style caps, emblazoned with logos of Santana or Los Lonely Boys. Mike gazed longingly at the baseball-style Santana hats. Never mind that he has more hats than Imelda Marcos has shoes, Mike is a collector, and I knew that he needed a souvenir hat. $25. This was starting to remind me of those credit card ads on TV . . . “Parking, $15; Fuego burgers, fries, soda and ice cream, $27, yet another souvenir hat, priceless.
There was a long line at the souvenir stand. I suggested that we wait until after the next show had begun. We went back in. Seated directly in front of us was a Latino couple. The woman was young and had been raised on Miami drinking water. The man was older, with pomaded salt-and-pepper hair, combed straight back. Whispering, I asked Michael if he thought I should pomade my hair. He seemed to recoil from the idea, but I thought the look seemed to be working for the guy in front of me. His young girlfriend seemed to agree. I thought of those TV ads for a hair product that hides grey hair from the ladies. The ex-jock commentators in the ads react with glee as the salt-and-pepper man is rejected by some young hottie whom he approaches in a bar.
“No play for Mr. Grey!,” they chortle. Later, Mr. Grey ducks into the men’s room, where he dabs some shoe polish on his whited beard, and upon his return, he is sexually assaulted by the young hottie, who fails to recognize that she had rejected him only moments before. I hate that ad.
Suddenly, I noticed that Mr. Grey and I were definitely in the salt-and-pepper minority tonight. I mentioned this to Michael. No, he could see another white-haired guy over there, motioning vaguely.
“Where?,” I asked.
“ In the orange seats,” Mike said.
“Aren’t all of the seats orange?,” I queried.
“No, we are in the red zone. Our seats are red. Above us, the seats are orange,” he said.
I wonder how many things I miss, being color-challenged. I hadn’t even noticed that there was another level of seats above us, so I guess I can’t blame colors for everything.
Santana and his band came onstage. He was wearing white pants, a white Mexican style loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt, and a black toque. Eight musicians and a singer accompanied him.
Two numbers into their show, the electric organ player hit some catchy beat, and one-by-one the women in the audience were charmed, pied-piper like, out of their seats and they began dancing and writhing rhythmically as they stood. Mr. Grey’s girlfriend could not resist. She was a good dancer, as energetic as she was limber. Now, some of the guys began to stand and dance too.
I pretended that I was about to join in. Mike was horrified. I was just kidding, but he wasn’t so sure.
This seemed to be a good time to buy the souvenir cap. We exited and bought a grey one in a matter of minutes, as the line had disappeared. Returning to our seats, we found a man sitting in one of them. I motioned to him to leave, and he pointed to someplace else where we should sit. I pointed to my ticket and then motioned that he should leave. It was too loud to talk. He departed, and we sat down again. Mike beamed as he adjusted his new Santana cap. He was having a great time.
The concert was a good one. We particularly enjoyed a song called “Smooth,” and another one in which a young woman was exhorted to change her evil ways.
At the end of the show, there was an encore in which Santana introduced each member of his band, and each one played something for us. As this was happening, a man came onstage, walked up to Santana and pointed to himself, as if asking that he be recognized next. Santana seemed to hesitate. Then Security came onstage and hustled the guy off. Recovering his voice, Santana said he wished he had some of whatever that guy was on.
As we exited the AA Arena that night, we had a great view of the Miami skyline. The weather was perfect, and Michael and I were in great moods. Maybe I would start listening to contemporary music again. This Santana guy wasn’t too bad!
Suddenly, I noticed that I couldn’t hear as well as normal. The pounding decibels in the arena had affected my hearing in much the same way as a too-rapid change in airplane cabin pressure, only now I couldn’t fix the problem by “popping” my ears. I assumed the hearing loss was only temporary, and it was.
The drive home was only slightly marred by a bumper-to-bumper slow down between exits 42 and 44 of I-95. As far as I could tell, it was all caused by drivers pausing to rubberneck at some road construction workers who were merely sitting on large cans on the flatbed of a truck.
They’ve got to change their evil ways . . . or just forget about it.
posted by Tom Shawcross | 3:46 PM
1 Comments:
Something tells me you DO remember Santana (you need to change YOUR evil ways) as you worked their signature song into your story twice, the second time to make a nice ending. They were the last of the Good Guys prior to the start of the Great Musical Decline.
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