An Evening on Musical Mt. Olympus

Everyone, I suppose, has their personal Mt. Olympus where the musical gods live and perform, and every now and then, growing up, we caught a few of the breezes drifting down from that lofty peak.  After all, it's not like we were musically deprived.  Abilene may not have been on the "A" tour list in those days, but every now and then the Taylor County Coliseum was rockin' -- The Grass Roots in their day, and Three Dog Night, The Doobie Brothers and earlier on, The Carpenters.  Why, even Kiss played a date there once upon a time.

But I never got to climb all the way up the mountain, and there were those higher up that I only dreamed of seeing live in concert.  I remember Craig going to Dallas with friends to hear Led Zeppelin, but I never got that close.  Neil Diamond once, but that isn't even in the same mountain range.  And while I managed to hear Eric Clapton and Jackson Browne in college, it has only been in recent years that I finally got to hear The Eagles, my all-time favorites, and James Taylor, and only last summer Kenny Loggins.  I had better work a little harder to hear any of The Beatles given their diminishing numbers; and there are a few others from "the day" I would still love to see.

Tonight, though, was a rarefied evening on the mountain.  Elton John.  Sir Elton.  I think the first pop song I ever played on the piano was Your Song -- tonight's encore selection.  My guess is that he has played it a few million times over the past 40 years or so, but it sounded fresh as far as I was concerned.  There were others my fingers remembered banging out on the keys, even if the rest of me had long since forgotten the words.  Lori commented that she might have expected zanier glasses and at least one change of outlandish clothes, but the near three-hours of non-stop singing was Olympian enough for me.

There were a couple of original bandmates with him on the stage tonight -- the guitarist and the drummer -- and they are all looking a little older, which of course could similarly be said about me.   But they played as though they were teenagers, and my ears are still ringing with delight.  I sort of feel like a kid again myself -- Crocodile rockin' and all.