Photo by Connie Schlecter
Last weekend, I got to see The Monkees in concert. This was kind of a big deal for me. The Monkees seem to have always been a part of my life. Besides Simon and Garfunkel (who I amazingly got to see a few years ago), The Monkees have always been at the top of my wish list of artists to see.
This picture was taken when I was in th 7th grade. I would come home after school each day and watch reruns of The Monkees on Channel 12. I recorded the songs from the TV to my tape player. Then I would record a trimmed down version onto a master Monkees tape. I was so in love with the power of my dual cassette boom box; I thought I was pretty state of the art. It's amazing to remember the work I would put into acquiring these songs when in today's age any song is available with the click of a mouse.
The first time my husband stepped into my car, I was playing this mixed Monkees tape. I had no idea he was also such a huge fan. It was 1993 and we were living in the heart of grunge. The fact that we both liked the Monkees is one of the little things that brought us together.
Photo by Connie Schlecter
So last Saturday, my mom-in-law (who won tickets to see The Monkees 44 years ago which was her first concert at age 13), the farmer, my husband and I made the trek up to the Clark County Amphitheater to see them. I was expecting the show, sans Mike Nesmith, to consist mainly of their mainstream pop classics such as Daydream Believer and Last Train to Clarksville. They did play those hits, but they also sang many of my very favorite songs that came out later in their career. Songs such as Going Down, The Porpoise Song, Randy Scouse Git and Circle Sky were such a joy to hear live! I never thought that would ever happen. With a 8 member band to back up the 3 remaining Monkees, they put on a great show. I was most impressed that Peter Tork walked to the edge of the stage and told the audience that they didn't care if we took pictures or video and shared them with friends or the world. Wow! The cameras came out and people felt at ease approaching the stage for pictures. What a treat. Check out these 4 songs and re-discover The Monkees. They wrote 3 out of the 4. The 4th was written by Carole King. They could easy fit into today's hip indie music scene.
This video gets better as you go along; it's pretty rocky for the first minute. I felt it's worth posting because it's nice to have a sense of them in their prime. Please note: there is footage of the Vietnam war in this clip.
