Nostalgia

Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.

Yesterday (all my troubles seemed so far away), I took my daughters (13 & 16) to see 1964 at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth.

I saw people there in their 70's and I saw kids there who were 7.

I have about 900 albums in my music collection, but not a single Beatles album.  I don't know why.  Seems like I once had a two-CD best of thing that got lost in one of my many divorces.

Anyway, these four guys come out and for the next 2 hours they are Ringo, George, Paul and John for all intents and purposes.  I assume they try to take you back to 1964 (although I would have no idea what that was supposed to be like).

It's funny.  It's sad.  It's memorable.  At one point, "Paul" is introducing a song and says, "Now for an oldie".  It was just silly.  Near the end of the show, "John" gets everyone to pull out their "pocket phones" and call someone so that everyone can hear the music.  I didn't call anyone, but it was funny (for a 60's show).

They have banter you'd expect to hear from the Beatles in the 60's.  I suspect they've probably studied tapes.  After the intermission they bring out the "strings" on the left and the "brass" on the right to have orchestra accompaniment.  I thought it was funny because during songs when the orchestra didn't play they would sit back there and do choreographed hand dancing and stuff.  I'm always appreciative of "the little things" and the attention to detail.

It was very easy to imagine yourself at an actual Beatles concert in 1964.

I think it all came together for me in an emotional high when the Chinese family sitting behind me all started singing along (and quite loudly) when they did "Yellow Submarine".  It makes you realize how good music can go a lot further than government officials at bringing the world together.

Of course, then when the father of said Chinese family started clapping very loudly and slightly offbeat to the next song, I briefly thought of ripping his arms out of their sockets and wrapping them around his rhythmically challenged neck.