Saturday Night Review

When I was in high school I loved to listen to folksinger, Melanie. She was popular when I was in my senior year and through a bit of college. She became known from Woodstock when she sang, Beautiful People, and the crowd for the first time at a concert held lit matches or lighters in the air and moved to the rhythm to the music. Later she wrote her first chart topper, (Lay Down) Candles in the Rain in response to Woodstock.

I saw her at a local venue over 35 years ago with some college friends. The concert was awesome, everything I wanted it to be. After the concert, we met her outside and had an opportunity to chat with her. Great evening.

Fast forward over 35 years: I found out this summer that she was coming our way in Oct. I have looked forward to the show since then! So last night we drove about an hour to a venue with the best acoustics in the state.

To make a long story short. She came out on stage and sang her first number, and my mouth dropped. She was completely off key and sounded awful. Just terrible. I thought, OK, maybe it will get better... maybe someone will tell her to tune her guitar and that will help her get on key.
That never happened. And the rest of the night was just too hard to describe.

Security seemed to be in odd places, giving me an uncomfortable feeling that something was going on and I could not focus on the concert. But focusing on the concert, was depressing because she was ruining all her songs. There was a man in the audience that immediately called out to her to say it was his birthday, and he kept repeating it and repeating it. Then he started to call out other things, some made no sense, some I could not hear. Soon security was sitting next to him. It was obvious at this point that the man was unstable. I started to feel I wasn't safe. I wanted to leave. My husband talked me into staying.

Soon Melanie was yelling from the stage at security to leave the man alone.

Some people got up to leave and she called out into the audience, "Where is everyone going? Why is there so much activity?" "Everyone sit down!"

It was the most uncomfortable situation. The audience started chanting to get the man out. Melanie yells at them that she has been doing this for a long time and everything will be fine.
She sings a couple more songs, the man is agitated. The police come and try to get him out of the aisle. People stand up again to get out of the way. Melanie yells again for everyone to sit down. But now we are all up out of our seats. I am mad now. My instincts said to get out of there before, and I did not listen. I am in a corner up in front and their was no exit on our side.

The man is now yelling for the police to leave him alone and that we are all witnesses. By this time, Melanie stopped playing, her husband was trying to calm down people. Finally, the police and security got the man out of the theater.

Now I was feeling nothing but anxiety, but the show went on and on and on. Way too long for me! lol

So when it was over, Melanie was having a meet and greet. I had brought my CD covers to have her sign, but I was anxious to just get out of there. I was done, so we left for our hour drive back home.

Sitting next to us at the show was a woman who traveled all the way from Australia just for the concert. She had seen her over 30 years ago and had a guitar pick from that show that Melanie had signed and wanted her to sign the back of it this time. She was so excited about being there that she was a nervous wreck before the show. We talked alot before the show. She had stayed a true blue loyal fan over the years. She knew everything about Melanie since the 70's.

I watched her face during the concert and she never took her eyes off of Melanie. She was crying through many of her songs even though her singing was so awful. The woman didn't seem to notice what was going on in back of us with the security, she didn't seem uncomfortable with the restlessness of the crowd. She was in her groove. I admired her for that. She traveled so far to come to the show and nothing was going to ruin it for her. I guess every experience depends on our state of mind. I could not get into the groove last night, the usual connectedness and inspiration that I get from an uplifting concert was not to be.