I Want You To Want Me

At the last minute, I decided to join a couple of the band guys at Taste of Syracuse. It had been a few years since I have gone to a festival in downtown Syracuse, but after a really great concert the night before (Ringo Starr and the All Star Band at the Lakeview Amphitheater) we thought it would be fun to check it out the headliner, Cheap Trick. I met John and Bryan on the NE corner of Washington and Franklin Streets (it’s a Plessas thing), and we wandered into the venue area where we got our $7 craft beers (Shocktop is a craft beer?) and listened to one of the bands of my youth. Well, OK, one of the bands of my high school boyfriend’s youth.  I went to a Cheap Trick concert in high school because Duck (not his real name) loved them and bought tickets for his birthday.  It must be said that later on in our relationship I drew the line at seeing Rush; I bought him a ticket and then I stayed home!

We were pretty packed into the crowd (it was a free concert, after all) and it was hard to move. Despite the cramped quarters, I was proud that I was able to get our 3 beers from the beer tent in the back to the guys without spilling a drop. My secret?  I just found the biggest guy I could and followed him through the crowd and leap frogged from guy to guy until I got back to the guys!  Now if only I could find it as easy to do that when dating, LOL.

The guys discussed a common concert theory. Well, it seemed to make sense to them.  They called it the pocket theory. When a music performance begins, there are all kinds of people in the audience, especially if it’s free.  People have little investment in the situation, and everyone stays to listen, at least in the beginning. As the show continues, the people who are not as interested start to leave, and this creates pockets of space for people (like us) to move closer and closer throughout the show, until you eventually hit a wall of die hard fans.  It was fun to hear them speculate and even cooler as the pockets started to open up and we moved closer and closer.

It was then that the band started doing some of their more well known hits.  There were a few covers done earlier in the set, and when this next song came up, there was some discussion about who had originally done the song.  The woman next to me (her name was Tammie) pulled out her phone and searched lyrics, and found out that The Flame was actually done by Cheap Trick in the late 80’s!

She loved the pocket theory and even seemed interested in this blog, and I told her to look out for this post. When I happened to run into her at Barnes & Noble last week, she called me out on the blog post that was missing because I went on vacation instead of writing it!  Hi Tammie!

The show ended with the faves Dream Police, Surrender, and I Want You To Want Me (Mobius Jones does a great version of this one!) Rockin’ it out with the guys to some of the great classics was such a great way to start my vacation.  Many thanks to that guy in high school who introduced me to those crazy guys in Cheap Trick!