Observations of the same concert crowd 42 years later: Creedence Clearwater Revival 1971 vs. 2013

– The size 28 jeans had been replaced by size 40+ jeans.

– Most concert goers could not see their tickets without squinting or using their eye glasses.

– The balcony crowd was most concerned if there was a bathroom on the upper level.

– Rather than arriving by motorbikes, they were arriving by power wheelchairs.

– Walking canes had been substituted for a must-have concert accessory.

– Long shoulder length hair had been replaced with no hair.

– The cause for peace & love was now replaced by fez wearing fat shiners’ looking for charitable donations to their hospitals.

– Rather than making sure you had a dime for a phone call, everyone had cell phones.

– In 1971 no one seemed to be older than 25. In 2013 no one seemed to be younger than 35.

– Beautiful faces now had jowls and laugh lines.

– Rather than racing up to your seats, people stopped to catch their breaths up the stairs “is there an elevator?”

– The people in front of me were wearing hearing aids, I suppose from the 42 years of concert going.

– Rather than lighting a match or your lighter to show your love for a song, there was a persistent greenish glow of tiny cell phone lights.

– Coke and 7-Up were now replaced by $15 cocktails – three times the price of my original 1971 $5 admission ticket.

Gray hair, huffing and puffing, canes, $15 cocktails – who cared! This night I could go back to that hot 1971 July’s summer night in Forest Hills Queens, rock on!

John Fogerty rocks the audience