Exurban Rock And Roll

My wife and I went to see Heart in concert tonight at the local fair. Because money isn’t plentiful at the moment, we contented ourselves with the free-with-fair-admission grandstand seats. The experience reminded me of seeing shows like that in my younger days, although I’d not seen Heart before this. We missed the opening number because beer. I found myself explaining to my date (my wife) the I-thought-it-was-basic fact about the band that the singer and the guitar player are sisters. (I choose to assume that she had known that, but had just forgotten.) People jostled and shoved up against us, coming and going all throughout the show. The guy two rows behind us yakked from either too much beer or improperly deep fried fair food, it hardly matters which, three songs after we sat down. The smell of his puke was only drowned out by periodic whiffs of someone nearby taking spliffs of marijuana. That, I recalled, is what a rock concert smells like, at least when you haven’t paid for the good seats.

The performance was quite good. Forty-plus years into their careers, the Wilson sisters both sound great, they have both new music (which you can tell they prefer to perform) and a large library of classic hits, and they did three Led Zeppelin covers for their encore (Immigrant Song, In My Time Of Dying (an unexpected choice!), and Misty Mountain Hop). I’d pay good money to hear an all-Zeppelin performance by them, although their material from the 70’s and 80’s still is very entertaining. If they tour out by you, it’s well worth your time.

Just watch out for the fellow who’s had one too many funnel cake bacon cheeseburgers washed down with one too many Limearitas. Protip: you’re gonna want to go ahead and sit upwind of that dude.

Burt Likko is the pseudonym of an attorney in Southern California and the managing editor of Ordinary Times. His interests include Constitutional law with a special interest in law relating to the concept of separation of church and state, cooking, good wine, and bad science fiction movies. Follow his sporadic Tweets at @burtlikko, and his Flipboard at Burt Likko.