Birthmonth Day Seventeen: The Ultimate 60s Show

DAY SEVENTEEN. AGE SEVENTEEN.

Seen here, as a 1920s genealogist.

So another thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a loan shark card sharp gangster.  This was very similar to the PI ambition, because I could wear the same trilby, and in that it was more of a game than a real intent, by which I mean although I wanted it to be so, I didn’t want to do any of the work to make it happen. 

I’d go into this more, but I already did.  So click here to see that post.

So… back to the Magic of Theatre…

I wasn’t really into music when I was a kid.  The only music I owned were Disney soundtracks (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Lion King).  But other children seemed to think that musical taste was a vital way to define yourself/be defined.  Every time I met a new child they would ask me

For some reason I wasn’t aware that I could answer with ‘musicals’ since this was clearly the truth, and instead I would go into a blind (deaf?) panic. 

I was aware that Marty McFly played ‘rock and roll’ at the dance in Back To The Future, so I would go red and mutter ‘rock and roll’ praying this was the end of the conversation.  It never was.  They would ask

I didn’t even know the name of any bands. 

Of course there were ready-made bands for tweenagers, and most kids I knew of were obsessed with Take That.  So for a while I convinced The Self that I liked PJ and Duncan, which had nothing to do with their ‘music’ at all and was entirely based on the fact that they had a sketch show and it gave me someone to arbitrarily fancy and write ‘I ♥ Ant’ on The Pencilcase. 

But the truth is that I did like a type of music.  It was the only type of music that I could understand, that really sounded like music to me, that connected on an emotional level and was not a hundred miles from those musical soundtracks I already liked.  It was called classical music.  But for some reason I was too embarrassed to admit that the music I was into was the most famous type of music ever, and instead thought it was less embarrassing to like PJ And Duncan.  

We had one CD of classical music at home and I listened to it all the time.  I still own it.  It was awesome. 

But I wanted to hear more.  So I started rooting through all the CDs, cassettes and records that were lying around.  And one day I came across a cassette that said ‘The Four Seasons’.  Naturally I thought this was a cassette of Vivaldi’s violin concertos and I put it on.  I was wrong.  It was an album of pop songs by the Frankie Valli band.  But I liked it.  I was listening to a pop song and I actually liked it!  I quickly rooted out all the other 60s pop cassettes lying around and spent The Teenhood listening to them all over and over again. 

So around the same time that The Housemate saw Dara O Briain advertised in The Theatre Brochure, I saw there was a 60s tribute act and decided I wanted to go see that.  I had never seen 60s music performed live, only knowing it from the copious compilation cassettes and CDs I had collected over the years (which all contained a lot of rubbish).

So like I had trusted The Housemate with the stand-up, and been rewarded, now The Housemate had to trust me and we went to see:

The Ultimate 60s Show (The Imposters/The Kings Theatre, Southsea/16^th November 2006)

It was an enjoyable show with some great live music.  The band were good, they kept it visually interesting with costume and wig changes and coming out of a TARDIS for some reason and they covered the whole decade (well, 63-69) so there was a lot of variety in style and they didn’t just do the really obvious songs.  The only dud for me was ending with The Rolling Stones, who I apparently don’t like.

I emailed the band afterwards to say how much I had enjoyed the show and asked for a play list so I could look up all the songs I didn’t know.  They were unable to help.  How is that possible?  How could they not know what they had performed?  So I’ve no idea what songs I actually heard and wasn’t able to look into any of them.

But the reason this show counts as a Magic Moment is not for me, but for The Housemate.  Because he didn’t particularly listen to this type of music before and wasn’t hugely aware of The Beatles.  But seeing their music performed live opened his ears and he is now a massive Beatles fan. 

Out of interest, it was ushering Elvis – The Legend Continues, starring Lee ‘Memphis’ King (10^th March 2007) that introduced me to Elvis Presley music and turned me into a fan.

What great tribute acts have you seen?