30 Years Later

Washed out has beens they are not, Earth, Wind, & Fire sounded better than I imagined. It must have been 1975 or 1976, I was going to John Adams Jr. High School in Los Angeles and I didn't know a word of English. I lived in a neighborhood that was predominantly black, therefore the school I attended was about 95% black and 5% Mexican or Hispanic but mostly Mexican. It was hard and it was rough growing up in that neighborhood but we made it, see if you wanted to survive you needed to stay home or join a gang, drugs and fights ruled back then but luckily for me and my friends we started a group of about 20 and stuck together like glue.

Football socker, ping pong tables and gymnastics kept us away from all the bad temptations that teenagers tend to give into. One thing the black kids in the neighborhood were good at (I'm leaving out fights and drugs) was at tumbling, so when they saw a group of Mexican kids tubling on the grass we found something in common that both groups could share.

Another thing that the few of us adopted from the neighborhood was the soul music. The Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Four Tops, The Commodores and of course Earth, Wind, & Fire among so many other groups would be all we would listen and dance to. Yeah some of us even learn how to "lock" which back then was a popular dance.

I started buying LP's when I was 15 and EW&F records came with lyrics which were normally printed on the record sleeves, so I started singing with my then limited English, but eventually little by little I did learn the lyrics and yesterday at Cricket Pavilion I reminised of those days and smiled at the fact that here we are some 30 years later going to see our favorite group from our youth and the amazing thing is that they can still sing their asses off but better yet that I could still follow and sing along with them.

About two weeks ago I wrote and posted about my daughter going to the Kelly Clarkson concert and how this young newspaper reporter wrote a piece about how she would be better off with an IPod because this kids at the concert were annoying her with their singing along, well I hope she wasn't there tonight near me because she would totally have hated me. Yep I was singing along like a mad singer in need of a singing fix.

As they said, they do not put groups like Earth, Wind, & Fire on MTV or VH1, but if you want to have the younger generation listen to good music you just have to grab them and take them to a concert like this. The few young ones I saw there were enjoying and loving the concert 100%.

Thanks to my son for passing the tickets to me, not only did we attend a great concert but we also brought back memories that had been in the back burner for a long time.