They lined up four, five, six...20 deep--only wanting to touch the man. They had streamed into New York form Anchorage and Omaha and Kalamazoo, but tickets to the star-studded extravaganza were completely sold.
But the insiders all had their seats, and sat smugly in their hotels in the garment district, all around the Garden. The fat man from Chicago crowed to his cronies, "I couldn't get tickets four years ago, and look what happened. I tell you, they need us fans."
Still some of the fans were unhappy at their seats and some hadn't even bothered to come. A puffy little man sat in the back row, muttering in a fast matter over and over to himself, but he had bombed in his 1968 appearance in Chicago, and after all, this was the big time.
Big Ed, known for his addiction to the mysterious drug ibogaine, cried to his wife. And a sad man sat in a wheelchair in the last row and wondered if they had cleared fire exits.
But all that was forgotten when he stepped on the stage. In his soft southern drawl he told how his daddy taught him to play and sing, and how it was time for us to get back together again, and about his Christian faith and his little daughter in the 60 per cent black school...
The crowd stood transfixed. This was the man who was to be more charismatic than Presley, more enigmatic than Dylan--and he was a schmuck!
They began to laugh.
The main didn't understand. "But I support busing," he cried. When that didn't work, he tried another tune. "The Panama Canal will always be ours," he declared. Still the boos came.
He had to leave the stage and they nominated Stevie Wonder to be President and in a surprise move, Bob Dylan as V.P. Later, Dylan was heard to say "This ticket got soul."
And that's the way it was. But if you can't make it to the Jimmy Carter Rally in New York this week, you best around Boston are:
Jefferson Starship, Friday, July 16 at the Boston Garden. If only you believe in miracles it can still be 1967. Better hurry for tickets.
The Band, with Henry Gross, Sunday July 18 at the Music Inn in Lenox. 'Northern Lights, Southern Cross' is one of the best albums of the year.
The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Boz Scaggs, Sunday, July 25 at Schaeffer Stadium. Muzak for young adults, ages ten and up.
