A first class old fashion showman -- that is how I characterize Lyle Lovett. His grande band played at the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset, Massachusetts last night. It can be stifling hot inside the tent in the round, but it had rained all afternoon to cool things down a bit on the South Shore, and during the show, a breeze would come through now and then. Stifling is a good spelling word. Does Lyle polish his own, up-to-the-knees cowboy boots?
Do you know anyone named Lyle? I actually grew up with Lyle Jelley. Joanne was his older sister and Jamie was the younger brother. They moved to Zylonite from Pownal, Vermont. The family owned a rest home, as they called them back then, on Old Columbia Street. My Russian grandfather Walter Lemanski did time there. In high school, I dated Judy Pikul. Dad played football with Walter Kriple. Rosa met Joe LaRosa and they married. Now she is Rosa LaRosa.
I swore off concerts like this years ago because of the patrons with their cell phones and drunken behavior, talking, dancing in the aisles, and standing through most of the show. That sounds like a Cajun dance hall that we love so much. Not sure why I agreed to last night, but I did. I went with no expectations. For me that is a good thing.
2018 - 1967 = 51 years that we have been going there. The Cowsills, Frankie Valli, The 5th Dimension, Frankie Avaloni, Bobby Ryderelli and Fabian Forte, Art Garfunkel, Neil Sedaka, Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers, Susan Tedeschi, Diana Ross, Tony Bennedeto, Willie, Boz Scaggs a few times, and the Beatles Show, to name only a few. Scary.
Oh my god! I forgot Chuck Berry. Chuck came down the aisle to open his show and our friend Maggie said, OUT LOUD, “I didn’t know he was black."
Why was it such a special night? Let me count the ways.
A stage that rotates. No cell phones, no standing during the show, no intermission, no second-rate warm-up group, musica from a mandolin, steel guitar and a fiddle. David Greely once said the difference between and fiddle and a violin is you can spill beer on a fiddle. Even though it was warm, the whole band was dressed in nice, expensive black suits. They all wore ties. They had nice haircuts. They mentioned Texas quite a bit. But Lyle calls it Tegsas. Remember the bands from the 50s? Grown ups and professionals. Nice. An aisle seat for me. We never had to stand up once during the two and a half hour show to let people by. The third row in front of us certainly did, but in our ninth row we did not. One year a ritzy Cohasset couple came in late to their front row seats, disrupting the show. The entertainer stopped and said to them, “Can I get you anything? A glass of wine, some popcorn . . . a watch?"
Lyle Lovett has developed his own performing style. Not unlike Leonard or Bruce or even Elvis. I don’t know of any band like his. Do you? He has a terrific sense of humor. At one point they had a technical problem. To give the crew time to repair it, he told a story about a show that they did in Oregon. During the show, one of their buses caught on fire. The Oregon fans thought that it was part of the show. He paused made a face and dryly said, "Portland!"
“ Steamin' greasy plate of enchiladas, . . . with ice tea and a waitress, and she will smile every time.” He forgot one of my favorites but thats okay. He named it "This Old Porch."
Lyle talked about his 29-year-old guitar. The man who made it originally was from Scituate, Massachusetts, where he made wooden boats. He was at this show and it was his birthday. Please file this under ycmtstuff u.
Sandy and I bumped into four joga couples from daughter Marnie's retreats. We missed you. Were you there?
After the show, we found a bar that had heard about mescal sours and even knew how to make them. Sea salted & spiced rim and everything. Jen the bartender introduced us also to cucumber margaritas. Yum.
Two hours later. on our way home, at midnight we bumped into Lyle's two large buses heading south on Route 3A. You can’t make this stuff up. Instead of heading up Route 123 to Assinippi at the rotary, they took Pine Street in Marshfield up to Union and then probably went south on Route 3 towards the Cape Cod Melody tent in Hyannis, and to their next show which is tonight.
We went straight. I am pretty sure it was Lyle who waved to us as they drove up Pine Street.
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