Back In The Front Row

 

Earlier this year, I went on a music cruise featuring many of the bands from the ’60s and ’70s - the music I love. It was a cruise where both the audience and the bands remember watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. In fact, quite a few of the performers on the boat were on that show too.

One of those groups was The Rascals, a favorite of mine. And we had front-row seats. When Felix Cavaliere, the 80 year-old lead singer, began belting out “Good Lovin’,” a strange feeling came over me, a moment when the past and present seemed to intersect.

I had been in this spot before. I had been sitting in the front row, watching Cavaliere sing “Good Lovin’.”

It was 1968. 

I was barely a teenager, and getting those concert tickets was a whole lot harder than paying for a music cruise. It involved a radio station and a rotary-dial telephone in our kitchen.

I can recall the thrill of having my finger on the dial, waiting nervously for the DJ to start the call-in contest. Typically, I dialed six of the seven digits of the radio station number  six and a half, actually. I held the partially dialed final digit until the DJ gave us the radio equivalent of saying, “Gentlemen, start your engines.”

“Our third caller will get the new record by the Four Tops and a WSGN Good Guys T-shirt.”

Then the race was on. I would let go of the rotary dial, completing the station’s telephone number. Most of the time I got a busy signal, which meant I frantically redialed, trying to connect with a voice on the other end. There was no speed dial, no redial button, no cell phone. Just me, a rotary dial and the increasingly desperate feeling that grew with each busy signal.

With the number of nimble-fingered teens listening to Top 40 radio, every call-in contest was a long shot. The payoff was normally not even worth the effort - usually a few single records.

Occasionally, though, the stakes were higher. An autographed photo of the Beach Boys, a transistor radio or, rarely, front-row concert tickets.

Which leads us to autumn of 1968. The Rascals  and Vanilla Fudge were scheduled to take the Boutwell Municipal Auditorium stage in Birmingham. Their respective hits - The Rascals’ “People Got to Be Free” and Vanilla Fudge’s cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” - were dominating the airwaves.

A concert lineup like this would make the tickets as hard to come by as carnations on prom night, even with the premium price of $5.50.

So, when our favorite Top 40 station announced plans to give away two front-row tickets, every teenager in the city began anticipating  the big event.

When the day came, the disc jockey said that the winner would be the 21st caller, which ramped up the excitement even more.

I went through my standard pre-dialing routine, holding the last digit until the contest began.

First call - busy signal. Undoubtedly, the phone lines were flooded.

Second call - busy signal.

Third call - someone picked up, said, “You’re caller fourteen,” and hung up. I got through! No time to savor my little victory. I quickly redialed.

Incredibly, once again my call connected. This time, the voice was more excited.

“You are the 21st caller and winner of two front-row tickets to see The Rascals and Vanilla Fudge! What is your name?”

I froze, dumbfounded.

What was my name?

The smooth DJ voice spoke again.

“Who am I speaking with?”

“Oh, uh, um…Joe Hobby.”

“Joe, how does it feel to win two front-row tickets?”

I answered truthfully.

“I can’t believe it. I call into almost every contest and I’ve never even come close to winning.”

“Well, you’ve won this one! Hold the line and we will get the information we need. Sounds like Joe Hobby’s hobby is winning concert tickets.”

Even at the age of 13, that was already a tired joke.

Within seconds, a nice lady was on the line giving me instructions on how to claim the prize. Basically, I had to go to the station and  produce some type of identification- aka my mom. 

The next day at school, I felt like Elvis. People I didn’t know were congratulating me. And of course, all of my closest friends were jockeying for position to take the second ticket.

Sadly, my mother had made that decision for me. I was going to have to take my 11-year-old sister. Thank you, Mom. This was like winning a banana split that came with a rotten banana.

Boutwell Auditorium was a small downtown venue, built before the days of coliseums. It held about 4,500 people for concerts, and it’s seams were bursting for this event.

On the evening of the show, I sauntered through the front doors, brandishing my front-row tickets, with my sister and my Polaroid camera in tow. There was one thing with me I didn’t want to be dragging along.

Guess which one.

I sat through Vanilla Fudge, who were good, but they were just window dressing to me. The Rascals were rightfully the headliners. They were one of the biggest groups of that era.

And I was determined to take a few photographs to prove I was not only there, but in the front row.

That’s when I learned a Polaroid wasn’t the best choice for concert photography. It was big and bulky. The film was expensive, so I only had eight shots. And I had to replace a flash bulb after every picture, then wait for the photograph to develop before peeling away the chemical-laced paper. I could’ve missed the next song by the time I did all this.

Most of the photographs turned out to be a blurred mess, with one exception.

Felix Cavaliere did his famous mid-song pause in “Good Lovin’” right in front of me. I snapped, flashed, and 60 seconds later, had a perfect memento.

Now, almost six decades later, I sat in the front row once again watching The Rascals, this time armed with my iPhone.

The technology had certainly changed. I took a dozen photographs of the concert, along with some videos. But as Felix Cavaliere sang “Good Lovin’,” I realized something else hadn’t changed at all. I was still that 13-year-old kid in the front row, trying to capture the moment.

When I got back home from the cruise, I went through every box of old photographs I have, trying to locate that weathered picture.

It was nowhere to be found.

I’m sure it’s still there, though - just like the memory of that concert, tucked away in the recesses of my mind, waiting to be rediscovered.

And maybe that’s what memories do. They wait patiently, sometimes for decades, until a song, a face or a familiar moment brings them back into focus.

The photograph may still be missing, but the moment is right there in front of me: a 13-year-old boy, a Polaroid camera, a front-row seat and Felix Cavaliere singing “Good Lovin’.”

Some things change with time. Some things never do.

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