{"id":923,"date":"2018-11-05T20:35:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T01:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=923"},"modified":"2019-12-07T13:10:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T18:10:12","slug":"the-hooters-and-the-doobie-brothers-rushing-the-stage-at-any-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/the-hooters-and-the-doobie-brothers-rushing-the-stage-at-any-age\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hooters and The Doobie Brothers: Rushing the stage at any age"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Guitarist<\/a>

Guitarist and lead singer Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers rocks the encore on Nov. 4 at the Sands Casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

A weekend of rock and roll ended with me doing something I don\u2019t normally do \u2014 rushing the stage for the band\u2019s encore.<\/p>\n

Of all the concerts I\u2019ve seen, I don\u2019t ever recall rushing the stage. I think that\u2019s because I normally don\u2019t sit close enough to the stage for most shows. I once sat in the front row for an oldies show and there was no place to rush to. I was already there. Mostly, though, I sit in the cheap seats, the ones so far away from the stage you\u2019d need to hail a cab to get up front.<\/p>\n

The other aspect is at this age, I don\u2019t \u201crush\u201d to go anywhere. I usually mosey, lumber, meander or traipse, with an occasional dilly-dally thrown in, and when I\u2019m really motivated, a lollygag or two.<\/p>\n

The music weekend kicked off Nov. 2 with a show by The Hooters, a Philly band that had some commercial success in the mid-1980s with the singles \u201cAll You Zombies,\u201d \u201cDay by Day,\u201d \u201cAnd We Danced\u201d and \u201cWhere Do the Children Go.\u201d Since I\u2019m a Midwestern transplant to Philly, I didn\u2019t grow up with these guys and was unfamiliar with the band\u2019s catalog of music.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re big here in Philly and I had not seen them live. The Blonde Accountant, a big Hooters fan, planned the entire evening, complete with a pre-concert pizza party along with several other friends and Hooters fans.<\/p>\n

\"Guitarist<\/a>

Guitarist Eric Bazilian and drummer David Uosikkinen of The Hooters rocked out Nov. 2 at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Our seats were stage left, about two-thirds of the way back, in a packed venue. The band was excellent, but there was no way I was going to rush the stage that evening.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because it was a \u201cHey You Kids Get Off My Lawn!\u201d night for me. The fact that we were too far away from the stage for me to rush it was irrelevant because it was one of those shows where we stood and danced for much of it. While my head and heart are perfectly happy doing that, the dancing offends my knees and hips quite a bit and they don\u2019t hesitate to bark at me about it. In addition, the temperature inside the venue was hot enough to cook a turkey. Rather than thinking about rushing the stage, all the standing, dancing and sweating had me considering calling an ambulance.<\/p>\n

The second concert of the weekend was a much different story. The Doobie Brothers were in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 4 and I usually find a way to see those guys when they\u2019re in the neighborhood. Here\u2019s the thing, though: I\u2019m more of a Tom Johnston early Doobies fan while my wife is more of a Michael McDonald later Doobies fan. I like both versions of the band, but McDonald has been a solo act for a long time now and Johnston, a co-founder of the Doobies and lead singer and lead guitarist on a lot of their early songs, is one of the originals.<\/p>\n

So, I only needed one ticket for the show, and when you need only one ticket, you can get a pretty good seat. Which I did: Stage right, second row, right on the end. Face value on the ticket, under $100. To me, that\u2019s a pretty good deal to be that close to the band.<\/p>\n

And my route to the stage was easy. One step into the aisle, then about seven feet to the stage. In addition, the Doobies attracted a little older crowd \u2014 who can still rock, by the way \u2014 but preferred to mostly stay in their seats for much of the concert. So not only were my knees and hips happy with that, I had only a short mosey to the stage if the opportunity presented itself.<\/p>\n

\"Doobies<\/a>

Doobies guitarist and lead singer Pat Simmons performs \u201cBusted Down Around O\u2019Connelly Corners\u201d from the 1973 \u201cThe Captain and Me” album.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Doobies actually had a special show for us. They had earlier announced that they would be doing their first-ever full-album performances at the Beacon Theatre in New York. They\u2019re going to perform \u201cToulouse Street,\u201d their second album from 1972, on Nov. 15. And then the next night, they\u2019re going to perform \u201cThe Captain and Me,\u201d their third album from 1973, on Nov. 16.<\/p>\n

So they were practicing some of the deeper cuts from those albums – songs they haven\u2019t performed in concert – in preparation for those upcoming New York shows. Among the songs we got to hear was \u201cBusted Down Around O\u2019Connelly Corners\u201d from \u201cThe Captain and Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doobies guitarist and co-founder Pat Simmons detailed the story behind that song in \u201cThe Vinyl Dialogues Volume I.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a tune that a friend of mine had written,\u201d said Simmons in The Vinyl Dialogues. \u201cThere\u2019s actually more to it than what\u2019s on the record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before he joined the Doobie Brothers, Simmons hung out in southern California perfecting his craft. After playing club gigs, Simmons and his friends would oftentimes head over to another friend, Mike O\u2019Connelly\u2019s place, in an apartment building on Main Street in Los Gatos, California, to relax, play their guitars and sing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d sit around and somebody would play a song and the rest of us would sing along. It was kind of like a poor man\u2019s Bluebird Cafe,\u201d said Simmons, referring to the famous club in Nashville, Tennessee, that attracts singers and songwriters to its intimate setting.<\/p>\n

The group would hang out at Mike\u2019s place so often that they started referring to the apartment building as \u201cO\u2019Connelly Corners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time, Mike had walked outside the apartment building and was getting into his car to go someplace,\u201d said Simmons. \u201cAnd he had a joint on him or something, and the cops arrested him.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was the inspiration for the song \u201cBusted Down Around O\u2019Connelly Corners,\u201d written by James Earl Luft. By the time the Doobies were recording \u201cThe Captain and Me,\u201d the record\u2019s producer, Ted Templeman, had become a big fan of Simmons\u2019 traditional ragtime guitar picking.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Ted said, \u2018Hey Pat, you got something you can put on this album?\u2019\u201d said Simmons. And that\u2019s how the first 48 second only of \u201cBusted Down Around O\u2019Connelly Corners\u201dmade it onto Side Two of \u201cThe Captain and Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

We got to hear the entire song at the Bethlehem show. It\u2019s not one I\u2019ve ever heard them play live in other shows I\u2019ve seen over the years. And it was the first time I\u2019d heard more than the 48-second version of the song that appears on the album.<\/p>\n

Among the deep cuts the band performed during the 19-song show included \u201cMamaloi\u201d and \u201cCotton Mouth\u201d from the \u201cToulouse Street\u201d album; and \u201cClear as the Driven Snow,\u201d \u201cWithout You,\u201d \u201cEvil Woman\u201d and \u201cUkiah\u201d from \u201cThe Captain and Me\u201d album.<\/p>\n

When the Doobie Brothers returned to stage for their encore \u2014 \u201cChina Grove,\u201d my favorite Doobies tune, and \u201cListen to the Music\u201d \u2014 Johnston waved the crowd up to the stage. And since I had it all planned out in my head beforehand, it was an easy meander down to the stage, where I found myself right at Tom Johnston\u2019s feet as he blew up the guitar strings during \u201cChina Grove.\u201d<\/p>\n

Very cool. My knees and hips were happy to accommodate me for two songs without much complaining about my dancing, and I was able to multi-task on a few photos and a little video while rocking with the Doobies.<\/p>\n

You gotta dance like nobody\u2019s watching when you get the chance to be down at the stage to listen to the music.<\/p>\n

\"Philly's<\/a>

Philly’s own The Hooters performed for three hours for the home crowd Nov. 2 in suburban Philadelphia.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weekend of rock and roll ended with me doing something I don\u2019t normally do \u2014 rushing the stage for the band\u2019s encore. Of all the concerts I\u2019ve seen, I don\u2019t ever recall rushing the stage. I think that\u2019s because I normally don\u2019t sit close enough to the stage for most shows. I once sat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":1186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[265,269],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-the-doobie-brothers","tag-the-hooters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1187,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/1187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}