Blog

August 20, Hillside Concert Series;  7 people showed up for this not to be “missed,” event, a record crowd at this year’s last Hillside concert.  Judging on where I had to park, I knew this concert was going to be crowded!  The men mostly sat on one side and the women on the other. This cut down on yelling at each other, plus we could get drunk & tell dirty jokes between songs. You couldn’t communicate during the songs, which were way too loud.

The first featured band was “One Of the Boys,” a 9 piece band, which I would give the gong!  The reason being a little too much acid, grunge type music for my taste (I wore my earplugs during their performance)  Head banging music, if you’re into that sort of a thing.

Next up “the Ides of March”, a band that’s been in existence for 60 years (and had only two hits in that time span: ”You wouldn’t Listen,” and their really BIG hit, “Vehicle.” ) These guys were Freshman and I was a senior at Morton West. They even played at a few “sock Hops.” I graduated in 1963 where one of the songs they played was “You Wouldn’t listen,” which didn’t hit the top 40 charts until 1966. That’s when they became big deal rock & roll stars at Morton West, handing out cigars from their ill-gotten fame, between classes.  I didn’t get to know them personally, but if they would have gotten some detentions, I would’ve gotten to know them.  Apparently, they wrote some songs for “Survivor” and “Colt 38 Special”  all of these songs were, in fact, awful except one, which was marginally successful.

Dawn & Steve P left early because there was a “Midget Wrestling,” show they didn’t want to miss.  Lots of groupies (well over 100) crowded around the stage to have their ears blasted by mostly lame songs, with only a few good ones (they are all deaf now). In general, they’re dancing was lame as well, which went along with the music. The last song they played was “Eye Of The Tiger,” originally by Survivor, another really good one.  Lots of very bright flashing lights with the Ides of March, like looking at someone arc welding.   It really cooled down after the sun went down, it was 63 degree F at the conclusion of the concert.

Milanne always brings her table, to put food on during these concerts, what happens over time is we put our empty beer cans on the table;- after around 16 empty beer cans the table is “full!”  to alieve this situation Evil Al provided an on-going garbage service, hauling massive amounts of empty beer cans to the site garbage can, other spectators were commenting on the amount of beer Evil Al was consuming!Ace Reporter