It was to be another great experience for us.
We had done it once before and it was an amazing gig. Since The Bus was stopping at this year’s, Sterlingfest we thought we would kick them off once more.
For me personally at was a chance to get to share the same stage as my uncle Mike, who plays keyboards for both The Magic Bus, and Rare Earth.
Alas, Mike got a call only a few days before the gig, that he was to be in another state, playing keyboards for the other band. (the aforementioned, Rare Earth)
Never wanting to disappoint, Carl and I planned on making the day as memorable as we possibly could, no matter who was in the lineup.
While a gig like this calls on us to be as cool as possible, the man up in the sky had other ideas. It was nearly ninety-five degrees by the time that we looked out at the huge Sterling Heights crowd.
Magic Bus was all settled in and ready, and were chillin’ back stage, like, uhm, er, rock stars!
It was our time to shine!
There was a timeline we were to adhere to as we cast out our very first song. The Magic Bus played songs from a very specific era at their gigs, so that the people who attend become immersed in a virtual, “Summer Of Love“.
Since they perform songs from the end of the sixties, we were thinking that it might be best to do music that spans the other years. I’ll include our set list, and let you decide if we selected the best songs:
Blowin’ In The Wind
Summer In The City
Solitary Man
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall
Feelin’ Groovy
Sounds Of Silence
Red Rubber Ball
America
Bojangles
Norwegian wood
Rocky Mountain High
Eve Of Destruction
Peace Train
The Letter
The crowd seemed very appreciative as we played song after memorable song, hopefully creating some new memories along the way.
Navigating through the turbulent decade, we selected music that blurred the line between country, rock, folk and what was called popular music back then. Each song dipping its’ toe into that long lost pool of our treasured youth.
Music alone has the capacity to bring people together as they were when they first heard a song; innocent, caring and optimistic about the future. When we hear the music, something inside of us triggers emotions that we cannot suppress.
Our goal on this hot summer day was to set the stage for the amazing band, Magic Bus that would then bring about their musical metamorphosis; if only for an hour or so
Even now, people hunger for the good times of their youth, when they had no responsibilities or anger.
The sixties were the decade of our youth as well. We grew up then and looked at the world, not only through the eyes of our parents, but through our new found youthful innocence. Impressions that would be carefully molded and shaken by events we will never forget.
It was a decade that showed us what we could achieve when working together, as one nation under God. How we could strive to reach up and walk the moon, while building a great society, and how it could all fall apart, as the act of one small man destroys the our idealism in the blink of an eye.
The history, exuberance, innocence and pain of that entire generation is embedded in those songs. When a person who lived through it hears any one of them, it all comes pouring out in a never ending river of timeless emotion.
If you wonder why that generation holds on to those ideals so tightly, it is because the feelings, hopes and dreams that they possessed were etched in them forever by the turbulent events that they lived through, together.
On this day, Carl and I wished to bring those powerful emotions back, and hopefully re-live them once more. We are part of that generation, though a little younger. Those ideals will always be our ideals. That music will always be a part of us as well.
Rb
Old Hippie
Bellamy Brothers
He was sure back in the sixties
That everyone was hip
Then they sent him off to Vietnam
On his senior trip
And they forced him to become a man
While he was still a boy
And behind each wave of tragedy
He waited for the joy
Now this world may change around him
But he just can’t change no more
‘Cause he’s an old hippie
And he don’t know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He’s an old hippie
This new life is just a bust
He ain’t trying to change nobody
He’s just trying real hard to adjust
