I don’t go to concerts very much. In fact, I think the last time I went to one was to see the Smothers Brothers. And they retired in 2010, so that gives you an idea. But I saw them much more than all other concerts combined (John Denver in ’85, Janet Jackson in ’90, and David Byrne also in ’90… I think that’s it, 😂).
So how many times? I don’t remember. I lost count. But there were a few that stood out.
The first time I saw them, it was February 1990. Not only did I see them in concert, I got to meet them backstage.
Here’s my Instagram post I made for my personal #OTD a couple years ago!
But I’ll tell more of this tale in my future Day 6 “Have you lucky been lucky enough to meet them?” post :).
My small George Harrison / Beatles experience
I saw them a few more times with my grandmother. Once with both my grandmother and grandfather when they played with Florida Symphony (Philharmonic? not sure) Orchestra. After I got married, I saw them a few more times with my (at the time) husband. At one concert, we sat in a row that was technically the second row, but the first row was short, and our row was longer and wrapped around a little bit so it was like sitting first row. And it was at that concert I saw their montage of photos and video clips about their life that was shown between their usual routines and then change to the closing Yo-Yo Man bit. The montage got to the Comedy Hour (found that part of the montage here) and up came the clip of when George Harrison came on to thank them for having the Beatles on a couple weeks earlier.
At the time of this particular concert, it was a few weeks after 9/11 and just a few days after George’s passing. Everyone was still a bit emotional. And when that clip showed up on the screen at the concert… well, I never heard so much cheering, clapping, stomping of feet, roaring of cheers before! Was the roof going to cave in from the reverberating happy noise? In the following times I saw Tom and Dick, and that montage was shown, there wasn’t the same kind of uproarious cheer, so that night was something special.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night
Then there was the time when my mom, daughter, and I went to see them at the Strawberry Festival in 2008. My daughter had never seen them live and was curious to see what they were about on stage. It was an outside venue. And it started to rain. More and more. But they stayed on stage. My mom and daughter went to seek shelter, but my feeling was if they were going to be on stage, I was staying put. I had come to the realization the previous couple times that I won’t be seeing them live many more times, and to not take it for granted. And I wasn’t going let a little (ha!) water ruin my fun.
Though I was concerned about them being onstage, with whatever electrical equipment mixed in with rain.
The last time
The last time I saw them was in 2009. It was their 50th anniversary and there was no way I was going to miss seeing them. It was, oddly enough, at the university I graduated from years earlier. When I had attended in the 90s, I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool if they came over and performed here? But that’s *never* going to happen!”
Well, not while I was a student there. A stint with the circus, marriage, two kids, and divorce later 🤣
My dad went with me. He averaged seeing them about once every 20ish years: once in the 60s, once in 1990 as mentioned above, and again in 2009. It was a great show. And they sang my favorite song they have sung straight, “They Call The Wind Mariah“. Dick introduced the song by saying they hadn’t performed it in 40 years, and Tom (just loud enough for the mic to pick it up) says “I hope I remember how it goes,” which everyone laughed at.
The concert I didn’t see
In the beginning of 2010, my cousin Nancy (who helped tracked down some Smothers albums for me in the pre-internet days and recorded the Comedy Hour when it was re-aired on E! network), had told me about how they were going to be at that year’s Strawberry Festival. And for some unknown reason I didn’t get tickets. I have absolutely no idea why. If I had known they were going to retire later that year, I would have gone.
But maybe, in the future ?
At the time of writing this, they are planning a tour of some places and already played in some areas, though different kind of concert. They had planned doing it earlier this year, but scheduling was delayed because of upsurge in Covid cases. A mix of performing, showing clips from the Comedy Hour, and “Question & Answer” session. They are making an appearance in Florida, and I hope to be there!
Live recordings
A fun filmed live performance was done back in the late 80s for PBS’s series “An Evening With Pops” with the Boston Pops with the legendary John Williams conducting/ It gives you a good idea of what it was like seeing them in concert. Below I have a playlist of shortened version of their live performance.
Fun little side bonus
From this same episode of the Evening with Pops. Tom and Dick do no appear in, but Dickie’s bass can be seen in a couple shots: The 1988 Olympic Spirit theme , composed and conducted by John Williams
I moved out of a very stressful marriage in February. It was just too stressful and depressing with Mark and his fiance there in the same house. While I do miss the house itself, I *do not* miss the headaches. Eck!
It also brought me back to church and have enjoyed the sermons and fellowship since then. It was something I was not allowed to attend while with Mark. Not only did I attend a new congregation, but also a denomination, United Methodist. While I’m still a member of the United Church of Christ, I have enjoyed UM… it is *very* similar to UCC.
March was another Smothers Brothers concert at the Strawberry Festival… outside….in the rain (I’m a hard core SmoBro fan. Rain does not bring me down from one of their concerts). It was my 6th concert of theirs and even though I mouthed the words to the songs and comedy routines, I loved it! Kristi also came with me. She had never been to a concert before. Well, she went to a Blues Clues Live show when she was 3. But she was curious to see them live because she knew I was a huge fan. Mom also went with us and when it started raining, she took Kristi to a covered area and brought her back when it stopped.
The month of May brought the finalization of the divorce. My marriage to Mark lasted just over 10 years. Two wonderful things that came out of it was Kristi and Katie.
May also got me started on regularly (almost) attending Father Roderick’s uStream chatroom. In the beginning he had his web cam on almost 24/7, but after a while he switched it to just when he records his podcasts (Check out SQPN if you haven’t already! Although the podcasts are all Catholic, you don’t have to be Catholic to enjoy them, just like you don’t have to have an iPod to listen to podcasts :)). And with his popularity with regular listeners and being on the front page of uStream a number of times, he made a few people moderators to help take care of a few random troublemakers that would pop up. And to my surprise he made me one of those moderators!
August I got another surprise this year from another one of my favorite podcasters, Cliff Ravenscraft. He created a podcast network, GSPN. One of several podcasts he does is Family From the Heart and on one episode he was giving away a signed abridged audiobook CD. I was on his live page chatting with others while watching Cliff and his wife Stephine and he said the next person who called in would win the audiobook. I waited a few seconds and casually opened my phone, dialed the number, and then I hear Cliff’s voice on the other end! So I made an appearance on another one of his shows (he interviewed me last year). And winning that CD was very cool 🙂
August brought about this version of my site. I do like it better. More dynamic content than my other versions which would remain static for a couple years at a time.
And December was attending a small but fun, SQPN get-together with Deb and Fr. Bill Kessler at EPCOT! I have an upcoming post and pictures from that so I won’t go into to much detail about that other to say it was a lot of fun :).
What will 2009 bring? I don’t know, but I have a good feeling about it :).
