Last night my friend Joe and I went to see The Fratellis at the TLA in South Philadelphia. Kristen decided not to go because of the two opening acts and the 11pm start time for the Fratellis and it being a work night. When Joe told his wife we were going she asked him if he was still in college?
Joe and I have been going to concerts for almost 25 years. Our first was The Hooters at Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre. One of the best may have been Billy Idol at the Allentown Fairgrounds just before we went off to college. The most memorable may have been Whitney Houston at Hershey Stadium (what?, we thought she was hot...and she was in 1987!) Joe harassed Whitney by shouting out the same request for an hour. Whitney eventually walked back to the band, called an audible, came back to the front of the stage, knelt down and proceeded to sing a one verse ballad to Joe. It was a long drive back from Hershey that night and twenty years later I still hear about it. Joe went on to be an attorney, Whitney went on to be a crackhead.
Since moving to Philadelphia Joe and I have seen a couple more shows. Last night was the Fratellis. We arrived on South Street to find a line of kids around the corner waiting to get in and claim their position at the front of the stage. It was 8 o'clock and there was no way we were going to go in and suffer through two opening bands with a bunch of kids. So we went to the bar next door, ate a hamburger, drank some beers and managed to watch half a football game. We then made it over just in time for the Fratellis at 11. We walked upstairs with the rest of the over 21 old heads and claimed our space. Eventually, a spot opened up in the balcony where the house videographer just vacated. We jumped in there and had the best spot in the joint. It was move that only a couple grizzly vets could have made.
Now I nearly had my camera confiscated at the door, but somehow made it through claiming that I wouldn't take pictures. But what was I going to do now that I had the best vantage point in the house?
My first YouTube clip was last summer after seeing the Fratellis at our XPN Festival in Camden. It's a great clip and I decided on the ferry trip back to Philly that I was going open up a YouTube account and post this clip. If all the kids could do it, so can I. I posted it and have posted several since. I've got a couple subcribers to my account, but I think Joe is my biggest fan. We saw the Hold Steady last year at the same place and were buried in the back. I was too far away to take still pictures, but made this clip of their closer. Sometimes it's just luck and you really capture a moment. I think this is one of those times.
At this point of the game, Joe is always curious to see if we could do better. If you like the Fratellis, you should like these clips. Flathead is the song from the Itunes commercial and
Baby Frattelli was the closer.
I'm amazed at the traffic that these clips get. I compare it to some of my photography exhibitions where I put these pictures on the wall, put a guest book at the door, and over the course of a month you may get a couple hundred people to look at your work. Now I'm not comparing the quality of work of Jim Harris Images to a point and shoot video clip, but that Hold Steady clip has had 3,500 hits. The Flight of the concords clips have had almost 10,000.
It wasn't until watching these new Fratelli clips this morning that I started thinking of those kids in the front rows. They are awesome. They stood there since 8 o'clock for that very moment five hours later. Joe and I had that moment watching Billy Idol a million years ago. I still get in there from time to time.
We almost didn't make it though. After hanging at the bar for three hours we talked about just going home. It was only a fifteen dollar ticket. It wouldn't be a great loss. I don't think we seriously discussed it, but it did cross our mind. I told Joe that if we went home we could mark down September 4th, 2008 as the night we officially got old.
Besides, I owed it to my minions of YouTube fans to get these clips online.
2 comments:
Good stuff! That must have been the dumbest bouncer on planet earth.
I leave this as a witness testament to Whitney's "All at Once" serenade to Joe! That was my first concert and I was in the stands with Hilari and the folks.... green with envy!
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