This birthday present of a show came courtesy of my son, Ben. He decided he wanted to take me to a club show where he could legally buy me a beer for the first time, having turned 21 a few months earlier. Truth be told, The Polyphonic Spree wasn’t his first choice, but a conflict forced him to pick this one, so it would have to do.

And do it did.

The Spree put on a show that mere words don’t do justice. It is big, epic in every sense. It swells with one giant feel-good anthem after another.

The show seems designed for stadiums, but on this night in July 2007 they managed to cram it all onto the Fine Line stage. Now, I’ve played this patch of real estate a few times and it seemed cramped with six of us up there. The Spree found room for at least 22:

• 1 lead singer
• 7 backup singers
• 1 harpist
• 1 drummer
• 1 percussionist
• 1 piano
• 1 organ/keyboardist
• 3 brass
• 1 woodwind
• 1 guitarist
• 1 bassist
• 1 violin
• 1 viola
• 1 cello

There may have been more up there; Ben and I kept counting and coming up with a higher number.

Whatever the final count, the energy coming off the stage was incredible. The leader of this hippy-dippy gospel ensemble, Tim DeLaughter, is like a Mr. Rogers on acid, impishly coaxing sing-alongs out of an audience eager to be part of this extended late 60s/early 70s Coke commercial. Don’t take my word for it, check it out:

Hey, neither Ben nor I went into the room as die-hard fans, but it is impossible not to get caught up in this kind of moment. If you don’t, you must be flat-lining.

(WIHAN stands for “When I Had a Nightlife,” an occasional feature described in this post.)

OK, before I tell the story behind that subtitle, check out the ticket price! Ten bucks to see the Stones. Tax included. No TicketMaster or venue fees. What a freakin’ deal!!!

Former Wailer Peter Tosh opened, supporting his Legalize It album. Most likely a decent set, but the only thing I remember all these years later is the size of the joint the band fired up toward the end. Looking like a medium-sized cigar, I imagine it took them a couple hours to smoke down to a roach.

It was a general admission show, a year and a half before the tragedy at The Who’s Cincinnati concert put an end to such things. So, after the Tosh set my friends and I made our way toward the stage. Getting to the front was never the hardest part of this maneuver; jump into the sea of humanity and the undertow would carry you in the desired direction. Holding your own up front, surviving the combination of mid-summer temps and body heat when personal space extended no further than your own layer of sweat, that was the tricky part.

I made it close, very close. Only three people between me and the stage, not more than five feet, an exceptional vantage point for witnessing the greatest rock’n'roll band in history.

The Stones’ set mixed songs off their latest album, Some Girls, some greatest hits and a couple more obscure tunes. Loose and raunchy, not as obviously choreographed as their later tours. Mick a bundle of kinetic energy, Keith so laid back he seemed to defy gravity. Bill Wyman and Charllie Watts the unflappable, steady counterweights to the Glimmer Twins’ madness. Ron Wood and the Ians, Stewart and McLagan, filling out the roster.

The one song that stands out in my memory is Robert Johnson’s Love In Vain, a languid blues tune in the Stones’ hands that – with the Minnesota heat and humidity – made the Civic Center feel like Mississippi.

Not everyone was appreciative of this change of tempo, including the broad-shouldered, shirtless guy right in front of me. He had been screaming for Sympathy for the Devil earlier and, clearly disappointed by Love in Vain, turned up the volume enough for Jagger to take notice.

Mick looked out over the crowd, but not directly at his tormentor, and declared: “If you want Sympathy, forget it.”

The Stones launched into another tune and the guy in front of me got angry. He pulled out a hunting knife and started waving it at the stage trying to change Mick’s mind.

At this point we had a bit of a physics problem. The people in front of Mr. Knife were focused on the stage and had nowhere to go anyway. The crowd behind me kept pushing forward, and all I could think is that when this guy tries to put the knife away I would get pushed right into the blade by the surging mass behind me.

Time to make my exit sideways. I knew it meant losing a prime spot, but there are some problems a guy just doesn’t need and a knife wound is one of them.

Incidentally, while there were no knife attacks that night, the Stones’ didn’t make it out entirely unscathed. Bill Wyman fell off the stage after their last song, lost consciousness and spent a night under observation at a local hospital.

(Another good local Stones tale from this tour: The band was doing surpise sets at bars and clubs, so everyone expected them to show up when Peter Tosh played the Cabooze. The place was packed in anticipation, and the crowd spilled well out onto Cedar Avenue. Sure enough, the band showed up and they tried to make their way in through different entrances. I believe Keith and Ronnie made it into the place, maybe even got close to the stage. Charlie Watts tried to come through the front door, got carded and turned away when he couldn’t produce an ID. That combined with a precarious sescurity situation to put an end to a Stones show at the Cabooze.)

(WIHAN stands for “When I Had a Nightlife,” an occasional feature described in this post.)

I do remember a certain electricity about this show. As a colleague of mine from the East Coast delights in pointing out, Minnesotans are pathologically possessive about famous natives, so Dylan’s ambivalence to the state he grew up in had long felt like an insult. But all was forgiven when he put St. Paul on the Street Legal tour schedule. ‘Will he acknowledge us from the stage?’ we wondered, ‘Maybe even apologize for ignoring us for so long?’

Ultimately, Dylan said very little from the stage. He certainly didn’t profess love for the Land of 10,000 Lakes; I don’t recall him even acknowledging his whereabouts.

But he did put on a decent, if challenging show. If the track list here is correct, he opened with My Back Pages, certainly not one of the most well-known works in the Dylan catalog. He’d eventually get around to his more popular songs, but it became instantly clear we weren’t in for a greatest hits revue. Every song got a reworking, sometimes pushing them beyond the point of recognition. It didn’t help that the sound in the Civic Center wasn’t very good (and let’s face it, “good sound” isn’t a description you could apply to many arena shows in the 1970s). I distinctly remember a feeling of satisfaction when I identified All Along the Watchtower early in the song.

In the end, the locals did get something special – one of the very, very few unplanned encores I’ve ever experienced in concert. After Dylan’s last song the lights came on, but the crowd wouldn’t leave. I don’t remember if I read it before or after the show, but Dylan wasn’t doing encores on this tour. On this night he did. The track list indicates it was I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight. Might’ve been, I’m not sure. But it did make it a special show.

(WIHAN stands for “When I Had a Nightlife,” an occasional feature described in this post.)

On April 9, 1977 I was a 16-year-old kid with a drivers license, a few bucks in the bank from a fast-food job and a whole lotta Saturday night staring me in the face.

I had somehow become a Kinks fan during the hardest years to become a Kinks fan, that period when Ray Davies insistently issued mini rock operas lampooning the British middle and upper classes. I’m yawning just thinking about it.

But Sleepwalker had come out a month and a half earlier, marking a return to less pretentious, guitar-driven rock. Trouble was, while I had been playing it incessantly for several weeks, it hadn’t yet grabbed my friends, at least not enough for them to head to the show that night.

I must’ve been moping, because my dad to urged me to head downtown by myself. I got to Orchestra Hall, only to find out the show had sold out. This was a problem because I didn’t have any actual cash with which to buy a scalped ticket. I tried cashing a check at a sleezy motel down the street, to no avail. I headed back to the hall and eventually convinced a guy to take a check for his extra ticket.

Here’s what I remember of the show itself:

Not only was it the first show I had ever attended alone, it was the first time I had ever been in Orchestra Hall. It was an odd venue for a rock show.

The opening act was surreal, a then unknown band called Cheap Trick. The crowd didn’t know what to make of them – two guys who looked like they belonged in a band and two more who looked like they belonged in cartoons. I think the audience thought they were mocking the Beatlesque pop they were playing. There was booing. I wasn’t sure what to think.

The Kinks’ set featured much of Sleepwalker, but it also introduced me to all the great early songs that aren’t You Really Got Me, All the Day and All of the Night or Lola. I remember being struck by the entire audience singing along to Well Respected Man and Tired of Waiting, among others.  Ray Davies must’ve teased with the opening chords to Lola a half-dozen times before he actually played it. Dave Davies attacked his guitar like he wanted to kill it before the night was over. Or maybe he wanted to kill his brother – there seemed to be a good deal of tension between the two of them.

All in all, a very good show.