THE CONCERT HALL

Riverfront Green Park
Peekskill, NY
July 21, 1999

photos by T. Tranquillo

    As would be fitting of groupies of our magnitude, Tricia, De, Tricia's buddy Rissa (a Rockapella virgin)  and I drove almost two hours up to Peekskill to catch a free outdoor concert. I was leaving for North Carolina early the next morning, but, hey, I have my priorities in order, thank you very much. After taking the "scenic route" around the charming town of Peekskill (i.e. "We got lost"), we finally made it to the park, unloaded ourselves and our stuff, and made for a prime spot on the grass near the stage. Would you believe they actually had the first ten feet in front of the stage roped off? They must have known we were coming.

This is the
CITY OF PEEKSKILL

    After some brief opening remarks from the MC, the guys took the stage for yet another amazing show (I personally never fail to be amazed, and I've seen them as frequently as five times in one year). At first it seemed the rather sedate suburban crowd didn't know quite what to make of these five guys in form-fitting black club attire, singing their hearts out and shaking their impressive booties all over the place. I had a flashback to my first show, back in the similarly suburban New Rochelle at Five Islands Park. I was a little flabbergasted myself back then.
     The three of us were making quite a spectacle of ourselves, whooping it up on the grass. During "60-Minute Man," Barry looked up and pointed right to us, which only made us shriek even more wildly.

Night falls and the beat goes on

   The guys even had a sense of humor about the fact that every ten minutes a rather loud train would roll past (the stage was right next to a huge train station). Scott even managed to work it into several songs, improving lyrics like "And there goes that damn train again."
     During the brief intermission, the local radio DJ threw t-shirts and water bottles into the crowd, and we got up to have  some over-priced hot dogs. The second half started as night began to fall, and the show closed under the stars to the rousing applause of the now insanely enthusiastic crowd.

Kevin's got the spirit

    After the show was over, we scampered back around behind the stage and fell in line with the other groupies, all panting for autographs, pictures and...well, we won't get into that--this is a family site. Anyway, the guys were gracious as always. They stayed for over an hour, talking to everyone. Jeff eventually disappeared, and we found that he was helping to clean up the stage equpiment. What a guy! (SJE)

During this song, one of the truly obsessed groupies rushed the stage: Go, Barry!

Jeff
(that pretty much
sums it up for me)

Notice how Jeff manages to weasel out of the really silly dances?

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