The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

It's not quite the Super Bowl commercial of yore:

"You've just finished law school! What are you going to do next?"

"I'm going to -- the Beale Street Music Festival?!?!"

But that's where I am. It's a three-day music festival in Memphis, TN. It's huge. It all takes place in a park along the Mississippi, with four stages and a series of artists performing on each throughout the day. It began last night at 5 and ran until after midnight, although I petered out a bit before 11. But not before catching a lot of music. In the afternoon I caught most of the set of bluesman Billy Gibson. Someone had recommended I check him out, and he was good although I can't say his music really resonated with me. But there was one part I did like: his harmonica solos (or "Mississippi saxophone" as he called the harmonica at one point) tended to meander through the melody lines of all sorts of other familiar songs. E.g., "When the Saints Come Marching In," "Oh Susannah," "Low Rider," "Meet the Flintstones"... As someone who always liked that sort of Peter Schickele/Canadian Brass/Victor Borge approach, that part definitely appealed to me.

By the end of his set I was hungry, so I checked out the many foodstalls. For the most part it's food of the region, with lots and lots of barbeque. I went to one place that served out of a renovated tour bus and got a turkey leg. It only cost $5 but it was the hugest hunk of meat I think I've ever held in my hand. I wouldn't have wanted to run into the turkey it came from in a dark alley... I ate as much as I could, in between the drips of barbeque sauce raining down all over me, but I had to surrender before I was done.

Then I caught the end of Jason Mraz's performance. I might have caught more if I'd recognized his name on the program as being behind the songs I've heard (and liked) before, but what's nice about a festival like this is that you can make these kinds of discoveries rather costlessly. A ticket for all three days of the festival cost less than $60 (including the Ticketmaster fees). And for that reason I didn't worry about it when I dragged my exhausted self away before Friday was over. I was disappointed not to get to check out Train or BB King, but there were two more long days of music ahead of me to rest up for.

But before I left I did end up with a front row seat for a Bryan Adams concert. I'd never seen Bryan Adams before. And yeah, I'd always liked his songs when I heard them on the radio, but I never bought any records or went to his shows. (Although truth be told, I probably always considered him a fashion icon, but then I'm all about the t-shirts and jeans…) But here I was, sort of by chance, and right up front. So I thought I'd check it out...

It was good. He wastes no time in getting down to rocking, taking the stage and taking off at the first chord. Good, solid, straightforward rock. Although I did find his lead guitarist exasperating. I've never had any patience for the overwrought theatrics some lead guitarists like to do. Particularly if they're 17 years old and trying to show off. What I've now realized is that they aren't any better when it's a 40-something doing them... I kept having to look away to keep from giggling at his antics because I found them so ridiculous. He's a perfectly good musician, so I kept wishing he'd just play...

Apart from that though I really like the performance, and the band, a lot. I noted with admiration that the backing musicians were also the backing vocalists - something I greatly appreciate about Huey Lewis and the News and the News' vocal skills. And I got a giggle out of the general style of the band - everyone with the same short hairstyle, black t-shirt, and jeans - it was like a wave of clean-cut masculinity radiating from the stage...

But all silliness aside, I was really impressed with Bryan Adams. A ton of energy and he really knew how to work his crowd. He has a different style than Huey Lewis, but he shared some of the same skills I admire in Huey, like how to play the entire stage, shmooze with the crowd, and use his body language in a way so that even those in the crowd for whom he's a tiny spec can still feel like he's performing just for them.

Song-wise he played some things I didn't necessarily recognize, but it wasn't a barrier to enjoying the show. And there were plenty of songs that I did recognize. The crowd knew a lot of the lyrics and sang them out freely (which did lead to some humorous moments when they beat him to the punch), but not being a big Bryan Adams fan, I mostly sat them out. That is until "Summer of 69."

Although I always enjoyed hearing the song on the radio, I always found it perplexing. In 1969 Bryan Adams was nine years old. So how could he be singing what he was singing as if it were autobiographical? But as I listened to him perform it the other day I suddenly realized that even though the lyrics might not be about a literal truth, it still conveyed a truth in its greater meaning. The song wasn't really about what may or may not have happened in those specific summer months - it was about holding onto the memory of a time when the world was new and everything seemed possible. As I listened to a forty-six year old singer sing a 20-year old song to my 32-year old self it took me back to a time when it was new and everything seemed possible - and I suddenly realized that 1969 was just a metaphor, and one I was finally old enough to understand.

Written 5/6, posted 5/9.