Magic Jewball

This post is a musical, so RSS readers of JBall will need to come over to the post to hear sound. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’s better than Cats. Except for me, I don’t come out too well, although I do end up better than Billy Bigelow in Carousel, I have that going for me. Also, the music’s by Gore & Wilder & Gahan & Fletcher, rather than Rodgers & Hammerstein. You probably saw that one coming.

Act I is the first Depeche Mode concert where everything went wrong. First, the subway had a signal problem and I got there late. Me, late to the highlight of my year. Make that every 3-4 years. It was horrible. That was actually the least bad thing that happened to me, though. For crazy legal reasons, I can’t tell you everything that transpired, but it ended with me in a wheelchair (I’m OK) in the zamboni area of the Garden. In between, I had a fight with a lady over a seat. I thought it was mine but I was….

In fact, that’s the song that was playing… you cannot make this stuff up. I’ve had some troubles lately (if you haven’t seen me around on Twitter or Facebook or whatnot, this is why) and I thought I’d lose myself in this show, but instead, I thought about the fight with the lady and the thing that led to the wheelchair. Then, of course, my troubles. In fact, during this part of the song, Come Back, which is my favorite on the new album, I thought of my mother and started to cry.

But mostly, I felt uncomfortable and edgy and not really into it. Bleah. Then they played this song and for a moment everything was OK. I really think when this song stops making me feel happy, I’ll be dead. It’s my ringtone, by the way, so if I play this snippet, I’ll probably think I have a call. But you go ahead.

Then they played this. The title of the post comes from this song and man, just the intro is enough to send 20,000 people into hysterics. The riff is only five seconds long, but live they play it three or four times, just to drive you into a frenzy. Well done, sirs. It goes something like this.

By the end, I was headed off to seek medical attention. The moment I found someone, they started my favorite song by them. It has been since 1986, the year I left my sister’s wedding early to see them at Radio City Music Hall. I told one of our interns this story this week and he was flabbergasted. He kept saying, “your sister’s wedding?????” What? It was one of the greatest nights of my life. My friends understood, at least. When I finally called them from the synagogue phone booth to touch base (we didn’t have cell phones back then, whippersnappers), my BFF said, “what took you so long?” Well, I was in my sister’s wedding and… Anyway, so you can imagine my chagrin as they wheeled me away to the strains of my favorite part of my favorite song. :: sigh ::

Almost worse, as the supervisor was talking to me about what would happen next, I could see in his stack of papers (it was facing me) the setlist and the very next song was always the one I loved to hear live most, and they rarely play anymore. God, did I dance my ass off to this song back in the day! These days, I run to it, it’s so full of infectious energy, but I won’t be doing much running just now.

It’s a lot, it’s a lot, it’s a lot, it’s a lot, like this:

You probably guessed that one from my intro. I couldn’t help myself. But, you know, seeing MSG from a wheelchair was just as… yeah, I can’t pull that one off. I didn’t even get to see any zambonis.

Act II, the next night, was a whole lot better. You know why? It wasn’t because I found my seat right away and it wasn’t because I wasn’t injured in any way. It was because I saw the show with my friends and they were friends I always see DM with. And we could joke about Fletch waving his arms when he had nothing to do (that’s most of the time) and Martin’s shiny pants (oooooh, shiny pants!) and the weirdos around us. Not much time to think about troubles. Old friends are cool, right Martin and Dave?

Yeah.

Closing credits roll….