The Best Bedhead You Ever Saw

This past Friday night I took Sebastian to what may have been his first rock concert. I guess technically his first rock show was when we saw Die Like a Champion at the local skate park in Manchester, VT. He was still a baby but we spiked his hair and dressed him in black so he would fit in with the other dark-clad teenagers in the audience. It was my second time feeling like a Narc at a concert. I'll write an entry about the other time in the near future. Anyhow, this time he had a choice about the concert we attended and decided on his own outfit and hairdo so I'm counting this as his first.

He had been feeling jealous lately about concerts we had gone to without him so I scoured the local listings for something early enough for him to attend and found out that Dan Zanes and Friends would be blowing into town on Leap Day so I bought two tickets and we were off. It was a fantastic show. For those unfamiliar with Dan Zanes, he used to be in the Del Fuegos back in the 80s and 90s and has since become the pied piper of music for kids although I truly enjoy his music as well. Unlike Raffi or Sharon, Lois and Bram or any of the countless other cloying kids music performers, he is unpolished and ragged and all the better for it. He plays folk songs, sea shanties, Broadway tunes, protest songs and a myriad of other genres. His voice is not perfect and the recordings are pretty relaxed, at least compared to the other nonsense out there. I always avoided the entire genre. When I used to teach, I was horrified by the music the teachers used to introduce the students to the Blues. The whitest chorus of tuneless children all warbling about how they "got the blues" - absolute torture. That cd never saw the light of day when I as allowed to lead the class. I see no reason kids shouldn't just listen to the real stuff like Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters. It's insulting to give them grade Z representations of music and expect them to be excited about Music class. Dan Zanes gives it to 'em raw just like Ol' Dirty Bastard likes it.

So the show was not a pandering kids concert it was simply a rock show where half the audience was children. It was amazing to see this symphony hall filled with kids going absolutely berserk, jumping all around, dancing like maniacs, ready to tear the place down would Dan Zanes have commanded them to do so. The parents were barely more civilised. There was dancing in the seats, in the aisles and all around the room. At one point, we were all moving like trains around the place and when the song ended Sebastian and I were nowhere near our seats so we just stayed where we were and danced for the rest of the night. Sebastian doesn't always dance or sing along at home but with Dan Zanes there, pounding away on his guitar and mandolin, he was on his feet at the first note and didn't sit until long after the show ended. It was pure joy to see him so excited and it was incredibly infectious. I also rarely dance in public but it was nearly impossible not to in such an insane setting so there I was, floppping about for an hour and a half and it was completely exhilarating. I do love to sit but it's even more wonderful to be part of a large sea of gyrating people, especially when you're not in danger of being hit in the head by an errant glowstick.


After the show, which featured beautiful pro-immigration and anti-war propaganda interludes from Dan, the ushers handed out free autograph cards for the kids. Several members of the band hung around in the lobby for an hour after the show talking to the kids and signing their cds, shirts, etc. We got to meet Colin the drummer who told Sebastian he dug his pajamas, Sonia the guitarist/multilingual vocalist and Dan Zanes himself. Up close, Dan's head seems nearly too large for his skinny, skinny body and when he smiles it's all creases and wrinkles - he's like a human Sharpei. Sebastian told him about the family band he had started called the Robots and Dan Zanes wished him the best of luck in his musical ventures. It's pretty rare to be able to meet one of your musical heroes at your very first concert. I saw 'Weird Al' Yankovic and the Monkees at the same bizarre July 4th show when I was 10 and the closest I got to them was the nose bleed section of a giant sports stadium. If I had been able to shake Al's hand after that show, I most likely would have exploded.