Day Eighteen--Concerts

TOO YOUNG TO ROCK AND ROLL

My father called me one spring,

and told me he wanted to take me to a rock concert.

I was eleven, and he was nearly fifty--

a neatly attired businessman of southern European ancestry

who always wore a suit, or a sweater with slacks,

and had never been to a rock concert in his life.

Neither had I, so as a consolation prize

for visiting with me so infrequently

he promised I could attend any concert I wanted.

Jack read a long list of band names

to me over the telephone,

hinting strongly that he wanted me to choose the Carpenters,

but I thought them insipid, and opted instead

for Creedence Clearwater Revival.

I felt certain that their folksy sound

would be less disturbing to him than the Rolling Stones,

whose zippered album cover was making a sensation

in all the respectable newspapers--

and he reluctantly agreed, sounding fearful.

On the day of the concert, we took a cab

to an enormous concrete structure on the edge of the city.

We emerged from the cab and entered the fray,

amidst throngs of pot-smoking hippies

and the loudest music I had ever heard.

After begging my father for Coca-Cola,

he agreed to buy one for me,

under the condition that I listen to a lecture first

about proper dental care, and

I listened as we stood in line

behind a bemused guy with a beard

and a hairy chest with love beads

whom I am certain was eavesdropping.

After some grumbling about prices,

my father and I entered the amphitheater

and were instantly pummeled by music

that was so ear-splitting that it almost knocked us backward,

but both of us struggled bravely to our seats.

Without a doubt, we were the only

eleven and fifty year old people in the place,

the only father-daughter combo of any kind,

and this made me nervous,

but I wasn't sure why, exactly.

I soon realized that it was because

it was impossible to sit still for either of us

because the music made us physically uncomfortable

as if a catastrophe of some kind was about to happen.

The weirdest thing was that Creedence

wasn't playing their usual tunes, the ones

I always sang along to on WLS radio,

but instead a bunch of songs I had never heard before,

and didn't particularly like.

A man named Bo Diddley played a couple of numbers,

and this made the crowd weirdly ecstatic,

but then more head-pounding music ensued,

with lyrics I couldn't understand--

except for one song that began:

“Shut up, woman. Shut up and sit down.”

The audience laughed loudly at the delivery of this line,

though I failed to see why it was so funny.

During the intermission, my father asked

if I was willing to go home early,

and I assured him that I was happy to leave

and return to the comfort of his Chicago apartment.

It was the first time

we had agreed on anything that evening,

and it felt perfect, so without further discussion

we left the building, got into another cab, and went home.

After that, my father never took me to another concert,

and this was fine with me, because

we always had much better luck when we went fishing.