Back to the Present
by: Jon Crane

Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 2, No. 9 (May 1, 1999)

In the film, Back to the Future, time travel was done by means of a DeLorean - a short-lived luxury car of the 1980s. Recently, I experienced a little time travel myself, along with 13,000 others, many of us driving SUVs , as I attended a Rod Stewart concert in New Orleans.

First, let me say that Stewart has not changed much in all these years. He still looks much the same and still puts on a good show. It is we, his audiences, who have changed. If this crowd was any indication, gone - long gone - are our days and nights as the bad boys and girls of rock'n'roll.

Those of you who cut your concert teeth in the late sixties and seventies know the concert scene I'm talking about. There were a few attendees prone to some lawlessness; there were a few attendees who felt the experience was enhanced by various methods of chemical alteration of consciousness. There was the crush to the stage, there was dancing in the aisles. There were guys with big hairdos, beards, beads and sunglasses. There were pretty girls in hip-huggers and halter-tops. But no more.

This crowd of mostly over-40 people (and here I refer to waist size as well as age), wore chinos and polo shirts, silver-speckled hair coifed in 50-dollar hair cuts or 125-dollar dos and Topsiders or Bostonian shoes on their feet.

The most reckless act of lawlessness I witnessed was a man driving a Ford Expedition that rivaled the size of some military assault vehicles. Instead of inching along in the line for directed parking, he pulled out, cut across a lawn, hopped a curb and landed in a spot a few feet from the arena. With the suspension system on the Expedition, I bet he didn't spill a drink among his passengers. Parking attendants promptly ask him to move and get to the end of the line. He did.

The closest I got to drugs was listening to two fiftyish women sitting a couple of seats over. They were debating whether Vicodin or Percodan was better for lower back pain. The drug of choice that evening appeared to be nachos in little plastic trays from the concession stand. Oh, baby! We've come a long way! And I guess I should add a "Thank God," for that.

It was a great evening and a great concert. And it was fun to do a little time traveling back to those days when I could dance all night. Rod Stewart has always been a favorite of mine, especially since I learned years ago we were born on the same day of the same year. So here were two aging rockers together again for an evening of song and fun - albeit toned-down fun, but fun nonetheless. I even managed to get through a song of his that was special to Lana and me without breaking down and making a fool of myself.

Stewart himself was cooperative and considerate of his audience. He saw to it that we were home by 11 p.m.

At my tender age, give me that ol' time rock'n'roll anytime, but please, have me home and in bed early!