Another Perfect Summer Night in Boston

"Hot town, summer in the city. Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty. Been down isn't it a pity. Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city."  John Sebastion of the Lovin' Spooonful

Boston's Hatch Shell

     Have I mentioned how grateful I am for the Boston Esplanade?  I recently spent another perfect summer evening there with my Lovely Co-Workers!  Earlier in the week one of them mentioned that a major heartthrob, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, was playing at the Hatch Shell, so we decided to meet and enjoy together.

From Wikipedia (2008)

 Burton Cummings of The Guess Who started the evening playing songs from my "tween" days (American Woman, These Eyes, No Sugar Tonight).  I was truly sent back to the street of my childhood, sitting in the kitchens of Houston Avenue, listening to WRKO AM, on radios placed on the kitchen tables.  I was of the age then to be aware of the “Hippies” but not of them.  They were so exotic and romantic.  The words of the music speaking to me now, a bit more poignantly in my life circumstances than they possibly could have to a ten year old yearning to be a teen.  (Oh, Boy, to go back to simpler times..for a short time that night I did..)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi10qSuZam8

From Wikipedia (2009)

          Mark Farner of Grand Funk Raillroad (I'm Your Captain, We're an Amercian Band, The Loco-Motion, Some Kind of Wonderful) then came on and he transported me back to High School.  What fun!  Watching him jump around the stage, I commented on how sore he would be.  As perhaps only music can, great memories were evoked of seeing this band at the old Boston Garden, finally the teenager I so desperately wanted to be when introduced to the music of the Guess Who. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiVUCrx05y4

            WODS which unfortunately is now off the air used to sponsor these concerts, but thankfully WZLX (with the financial backing of Shaw's Deli, etc) has picked up the baton.  When we arrived the crowd was rather slim but by the end of the concert the Esplanade was mobbed, the crowd was mostly baby-boomers, so not a crazy scene, maybe made more mellow by the sweet smell of you "know what" wafting through the air as the sky darkened.(Interesting note: Between Bands, of course there was a rush to the rest rooms, and a Lady behind me commented on seeing the line for the Men’s room being as long as ours for once.  I simply stated the median age of the crowd.)  As Everyone quietly and smoothly walked away at the end of the concert, All seemed to be smiling, perhaps having just been sent back to their rosier days of youth as I.

(By the way, did I mention that this concert, as are all at the Hatch Shell, was free?!)