With
The Detroit Symphony
Orchestra
Live
@
The Masonic Temple
Detroit,
Michigan 1973
I had a tough year or so since my
girlfriend and I broke up. We were together for over six years. In a sense, we
grew up together from the time I was 15 in 1967 until 1972 we spent most of our
time together. Because she was a year and ½ older than me, she was like a
mentor. She taught me to drive a car, camp, and make-out at the drive-in
theater, the living room couch, or in the driveway of her family home. Makin’
out was pretty cool. It seemed peculiar to me that as we became physically
closer, our relationship became colder and more distant. By 1972, she had
graduated from Henry Ford Hospital’s School of Nursing. I was in my second year
at MSU. She was slugging it out in the frontline of Ford Hospital’s Emergency
Room while I was demonstrating against the war. She was maturing into an
attractive and fascinating woman; I was still a kid, rocking & rolling,
smoking dope and gradually adopting a counter culture life plan. Somehow we
couldn’t reconcile our differences. So we agreed to part, though we would
occasionally check-in by phone or meet up unexpectedly at White’s Bar when we
both happened to be in Saginaw.
I moved away in 1970 but returned in late 1976
for good, except for a 4 month trip to Oregon in 1977. Joanne returned to
Saginaw briefly in the 80’s but ended up living in Detroit with her second
husband until the time of her death in 1990 from a brain aneurysm. I was
devastated. She was too young to go and now all those memories I shared with
her would be my sole province. I hoped that I could live up to that honor. It
was a daunting task for a budding alcoholic. At the time my only skill was drinking
and I took to it with both fists. I wouldn’t feel the pain, no, I wouldn’t feel
a thing. In 1973, I had no idea of what the future would bring. In fact, I thought
I was pretty hot. I was acing all my classes and I was dating different women.
The one I liked the best was over 6ft tall and since I’m all of 5’ 6”, we
looked like Mutt & Jeff…was I Mutt? Anyway, students passing us on the
campus trails would give us funny looks or even laugh. I guess we never really
stood a chance though I was never too hooked, you see, I secretly wished to
reunite with my lost girlfriend. I still carried the torch.
It was autumn of 1973, my brother
Bill was back from the service having been stationed in Germany, Fulda to be
exact. We were hanging out and even made plans to live together in East Lansing,
never happened. But we did check out a few rock n’ roll shows before life took
us in opposite directions. We both loved the early Bee Gees music and we jumped
at the chance to catch their show at the Masonic Temple in Detroit. In 1973,
the Bee Gees career was stalled and their early Beatlesque music seemed like a
distant memory. Their last big hits Lonely Days (1970) and How Do You Mend A
Broken Heart (1971) led to a series of other nice songs that were all ballads
that all sounded the same.
The Bee Gees had reached a pattern of stasis,
paralyzed by their past, worried about the future, and losing track of the
moment. The band was stuck in a holding
pattern, a never ending loop fit for the twilight zone. Despite their relative
youth, they were becoming obsolete. But not in my eyes. As we entered the comfortably lush and
inviting main floor of the Masonic, I took time to gaze upon its grandeur. It
was simply breathtaking, especially when I was used to more modest surroundings,
like the Eastown on Harper & Van Dyke. So, I’m looking around and my eyes
wander up above to the balcony and there, as god is my witness is former
girlfriend and she’s with another man. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. “He’s
probably that fuckin’ doctor she told me about.” I felt a pain, a pain in my
chest…I think it was a heartache. The lights went down and I settled-in for the
show.
The Bee Gees looked great. Young,
trim and at the top of their game. They were no has-beens. The band was
accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the sound was rich and
gorgeous – magnificent baroque pop music, everything I hoped it would be. The
music reminded me of their ’69 Masterpiece Odessa - although they played only First of May from
it. Barry Gibb was the principal
songwriter and lead singer on most of the hits. He took a center-stage
prominence that could not be denied.
Robin proved to be a better singer with an oddly captivating operatic
voice and incredible 3 octave range.
Robin’s vocal on I Started A Joke was simply incredible. Still Barry
commanded our attention on such songs as Words, 1941 Mining Disaster, To Love
Somebody and First of May. But when Robin would trade off vocals with Barry on I’ve
Gotta Get A Message to You, Massachusetts, and Holiday the show really took
off. Still, the show wore thin in spots, too many ballads, and Barry’s
over-reliance on that whispery vibrato vocal style that he perfected on Words, after
a while it was like “gimme a break, already”. Then-current hits like Run to Me,
Don’t Wanna Live Inside Myself, and Alive were elegant yet repetitive ballads
that all sounded the same. Maybe they just hit too close to my current state of
mind. The topper was the stomping encore of Lonely Days, an elegant power
ballad that starts out pretty and slow on the verses - sung in a magnificent
3-part harmony - then segues into a pounding sing-a-long chorus. Robin was
beside himself, leaping to and fro in an odd dis-rhythmic convulsive dance across
the stage, getting the audience to clap along - finally, signs of life! The
show ended on a rousing note. The Bee Gees proved to be a magnificent live band
and despite their best efforts, they put on an almost lackluster show. Perhaps
it was the ambivalence amongst the brothers, the need for new direction. In
1973, the disco craze was about two years away and the Bee Gee’s rebirth was
only a wish. Then again, it may have
been my own ambivalence about my life and about love that dampened the
experience. I’m not sure. But when the show ended and the house lights came on,
I looked up to the balcony.
And she was gone…
Peace,
Bo White
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