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While touring Europe in his pre Rascals days with Joey Dee, he was inspired by an opening act called The Beatles.

“I had the specific vision for The Rascals from the beginning,” Cavaliere recalled. “I was in Europe with Joey Dee, just before The Beatles came to the U.S. I saw them and worked on the same bill with them in Europe, and was wondering what all the noise was all about. I was able to see what they were doing and really felt I could do something like that.

“Because, basically, they were a singing group that did a lot of covers of American songs. and they did their own songs, when no one had heard of them yet. There was a uniqueness about them. I said: ‘This is what people are screaming about. It’s not their hair.’ My plan was to get the best singers and best players I could find. So, from the beginning, I had a concept based around the organ, voices and a great drummer.”

                                                                          -Felix Cavaliere 2015

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University of Tampa cafeteria. Tampa, FLA.

And there I was.

Sophomore year and I’m eating my lunch and digesting what this year of college might bring forth.

Over the loudspeakers comes an announcement that the college has secured two tickets to the upcoming Police concert at Orlando’s Tangerine Bowl in two months’ time. The Fixx, who were also starting go gain musical traction at the time, were installed as the opener. A classic early Eightie’s line up if there ever was one.

We were instructed to reach under our seats where an envelope containing said tickets would be found.

I instinctively reached under my seat, not expecting to find anything, but the plastic bottom of my chair, but lo and behold, I felt an envelope.

And for some reason, fear took over. Fear that I’d have the envelope and that I’d be the center of attention for the entire cafeteria. That fear.

So instead of conquering my fear, I gave into my fear and acted like nothing was happening. Rose from my chair, dropped off my lunch tray and exited the cafeteria. To leave those tickets to another, less fearful student.

Fear not!

That’s my church, that’s my sacrament. You know just playing music every day and offering it up to God, and saying thank you. – Sting

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September 20th, 1978. Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.

October 6^th, 1979. Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ. Van Morrison.

September 29^th, 1980. Madison Square Garden, NYC. Queen.

December 8^th, 1980. The Spectrum, Philadelphia. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.

August 20^th, 1989 Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ. The Cure/Love & Rockets/The Pixies.

July 12, 1987 Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ. Bob Dylan & The Grateful Dead.

So I guess my question is, what was I thinking?

Music is spiritual. The music business is not. – Van Morrison

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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers with Tommy Tutone of 867-5309 fame opening. Eleventh row seats smack in the center. Damn The Torpedo’s was released eight months prior and was on fairly consistent rotation on both WMMR and WNEW. For those of you that remember rock and roll radio.

Tom and the band come out firing on all cylinders with ‘Shadow Of A Doubt’ and it never lets up from there. Covers of Solomon Burke’s ‘Cry To Me’, the Isely’s ‘Shout’ and Eddie Cochrane’s ‘Something Else’ brings down the house.

As my small concert crew are leaving our seats and headed back to Jersey, there’s someone else down. This guy who was in the twelfth row. Clearly inebriated. So much so that he couldn’t get up. Challenging yours truly to a fight. For what? He was much older than I, but I was much more mobile than he. So I stepped around him. But he kept challenging me to fight. Clearly he made an impression as I’ve still not forgotten him to this day.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Shirt from the show

Fast forward to June 20^th, 2006. New York City. Madison Square Garden.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers with Trey Anastasio of Phish fame opening. Seventh row on the floor stage left. The Highway Companion tour had started a month prior and was gaining steam as it rolled into NYC.

This was one of the few times I’d procured tickets through an outside agency. I hand my tickets to the gentleman ticket taker and his bar code wand lights up in red. He tells me to wait just a moment. He brings back someone looking like a superior. He looks at the tickets and then says to follow him. At this point I’m feeling pretty good as I’m figuring the seats are so good that he’s going to give us some sort of special escort to them or something. Or something like that. Well, it was something, but not something like that. Rather than lead us into the arena, he leads us into a small office where another gentleman is waiting. He looks at my tickets and then consults a list. He then opens up a drawer, a rubber stamp in his hand. He then proceeds to utilize said rubber stamp and stamps the word ‘VOID’ across my ticket. The word ‘void’ is usually not associated with smooth concert entry so I asked him what was going on. Seems that a bunch of tickets were sold back to the secondary market from folk who had originally purchased them through the Tom Petty fan club site. And I guess mine were two of them. So I get it, but this was through no fault of my own as they were legit tickets and how was I to know that they weren’t supposed to be sold on the secondary market? I asked the gentleman who voided my tickets what I was supposed to do? Where was I going to be sitting? He laughed and said I wouldn’t be sitting anywhere because I didn’t have any tickets any more.

So I left MSG. As I’m walking down the steps I look over to the person I’d brought to the gig and say, ‘Well, at least it wasn’t a date or something.’ She replied, ‘Um, I was considering this a date.’

I read a review of the show the next day; Stevie Nicks was on hand and they did a bunch of songs together. Stubhub refunded my money, but still.

“Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There’s not some trick involved with it. It’s pure and it’s real. It moves, it heals…it communicates and does all these incredible things.” –Tom Petty

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I’ve been passing by this two story sized graphic for a few months. Stopping and engaging many a High Line passerby.

You needn’t be an Einstein to know that this is true. Though it’s comforting to know that he’s on board with the sentiment.

Seems that he has a number of colleagues who concur:

Light of the world, shine on me. Love is the answer. – Todd Rundgren

Makes no difference what you have heard. Love is the answer. – Weezer

The answer is love, I’m telling you now. – Aloe Blacc

Love sweet love is the answer. – The Stylistics

Love is the answer, this you must remember. –Bad Brains

Love is the answer and you know that for sure. –John Lennon

I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details. – Albert Einstein

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Touch down at Louis Armstrong International, check in at ye olde hotel and hightail it to the Fairgrounds. Duck into the Gospel Tent to catch the Morning Star Baptist Church Mass Choir and then it’s on to the main stage to await on Bob. Don’t quote me on this, but I think Joe Cocker was on just before him. Or maybe it was Dr. John? No, I think it was Cocker. Maybe.

Dylan and his band take the stage in the brilliant afternoon sun and start right in on a rousing rendition of ‘To Be Alone With You’. Banging out chords on his upright organ, strumming his six string and blowing inspiring harmonica notes out to all who would receive. In what seems a blink of an eye the last strains of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ ring out and then it’s over.

Or was it?

No. It’s never over with Bob Dylan. You should know that by now.

The following day I’m back at it again. I told you; I had a mania. This time Dylan’s at the Municipal Auditorium in Louis Armstrong Park. Beautiful park and a wonderful venue. Like an old time high school gymnasium; wooden floors and all. I make my way to the venue and run into a series of buses parked alongside the road leading up to the auditorium. Lo and behold I notice Dylan’s guitarists Larry Campbell and Freddy Koella just hanging out. Just killing time. Just shooting the breeze. Clearly waiting for me to approach them. Which I do. We talk a bit o music talk and they agree to pose for a picture with yours truly. Which was nice. So I have that going for me. And they have that going for them.

Lucinda Williams was the opener. That’s a fact. Eight songs and she’s off and Dylan’s on. He’s got sax player Dickie Landry with him for this gig. That’s a fact. Sixteen songs and Dylan’s off.

“Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else. Songs like ‘Let Me Rest On a Peaceful Mountain’ or ‘I Saw The Light – that’s my religion. I don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I’ve learned more from the songs than I’ve learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.” -Bob Dylan 1997

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Excitement and tension were in the air. But nothing that a high school sophomore couldn’t handle. Just a week prior eleven Who fans were killed in a stampede outside Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum. My folks were not happy concerning my upcoming show attendance, but they stayed the course and allowed my plans to come to fruition.

This was back in the day of what was called festival seating; or in other words, first come first served, or in other other words, every man for himself. Your ticket gained you entrance into the venue, but beyond that, it was up to you where you’d sit. We queued up about six hours before show time. That’s a lot of waiting and standing around time on a chilly Philly sidewalk, but we were young and impervious to such discomfort. At some point the doors open and there’s an organized, but still scary crush of people headed towards the doors. In a flash we were inside. Some quick calculations if we should run down to the floor to get closer to the stage, but we’d been standing for so long that we chose some pretty decent seats on the lower level stage right.

Three out of the four original The Who as well as new drummer Kenny Jones arrive on stage. They play all The Who material you know and love. 25 songs later and my first concert experience is complete. A fine start of a long and storied concert career indeed.

Thirteen years prior Bruce Springsteen saw The Who at Asbury Park’s Convention Hall and it was his first concert experience as well. So we’ve got that in common.

Who/What was your first concert experience? Do tell.

“Pete Townshend managed to take the dirty business of rock and roll and somehow make it spiritual and he turned it into a quest. He identified the place where it was noble and he wasn’t afraid to go there. I took a lot of that with me as the years passed by.”

– Bruce Springsteen, upon presenting an award to Pete Townshend in May of 2015.

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So the line gets reordered and the doors open. I had friends flying in to attend the show so I was hoping for the best to make it worth everyone’s while. When it was my turn, I asked for the four best seats available. I received what looked to be like four floor seats so things were looking good.

Concert day arrives and everyone had assembled in town and we were excited to see what was being billed as The Licks Tour. This was the opening night of four shows in SF. When we arrived at the stadium and ushered to our seats, it turned out, we were in some area that contained zero seats and we all had to stand. I was a bit puzzled as the tickets didn’t reflect this. The staging was so large and with plenty of screens, you could still see much of what was going on. You just had to stand; we were in what would have been the infield with the stage set up in what would be left field. But whatever; we were there and it was The Stones. I think Sheryl Crow opened and then soon enough the band hit the stage with fireworks ablazin’ and the chords to “Brown Sugar reverberating.

At about the halfway point I see the larger stage go dark and then a bunch of movement coming down the middle aisle. The internet wasn’t mature at that point so you didn’t have the immediate concert discourse and reviews we enjoy today. I wasn’t sure what was happening. The next thing I know the entire band is set up on a much smaller stage…right in front of us. I’m literally in the first row of this new stage. Ok, now you’re talking my language. The band played “Neighbors”, “Little Red Rooster” and “Like A Rolling Stone” before returning to the larger stage.

The attached pics were taken from a smuggled in Canon SureShot. I’m talking film here people. Sweating it out during the security check so as to not get nabbed. These kids today with their cell phone cameras have it too easy.

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