The Geezer Rock Tour Rolls On

Now in it's third year, the Sproule/Bonk Geezer Rock & Roll Tour stopped in at the Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall this past Saturday night for a performance of the 1970's era hit machine, Three Dog Night, and I have to tell you, never has the term "Geezer Rock" been more applicable than seeing Three Dog Night perform in 2019.  That said, it was a really enjoyable evening and a fun concert.

Now I was never what you would call a huge Three Doig Night fan back in the day, but I knew that they had a lot of hits, and I knew that I would probably recognize more songs than I realized that I would, and damned of that was not the case.  Front man Danny Hutton talked about the band being together for fifty-one (51!!!) years, and that at their height they had twenty-one (21!!!) consecutive Top Forty hits, and that is exactly what they gave the crowd (that appeared to be a sell out, by the way) on Saturday.  Unlike some acts, Three Dog Night wasn't about to give the crowd "some of our new stuff". No sir, they sang nothing but the old stuff, the hits, and you recognized every single song that they sang.

A lot off the in-between song patter that the guys gave focused on riffs about how old they are.  Hutton said that most of their old hits are songs that you now hear as background music on movie sound tracks, at Walmarts, and "doctors' offices; especially doctors' offices."  It got a big laugh from the, shall we say, "mature" audiences.  Hutton introduced his son who was playing bass in the back up band, and he, the son, is now a middle aged man!  And God bless the guys, they did their best to groove while singing their songs, but what you saw were guys in their mid to late seventies trying to dance.  Not pretty, but, like I said, a fun concert.

Three Dog Night

Taken with my iPhone camera

As Three Dog Night went through their playlist, you just knew that there would be an encore, and you just knew what it was going to be, a rousing rendition of "Joy to the World".  

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea

Joy to you and me

A great way to end the evening!

Oh, and one more thing.  If you live in the Pittsburgh area, and have never been to a concert at the Carnegie Library Music Hall in Homestead, make it a point to try and do so.  It's a beautiful facility, small and intimate with terrific acoustics.  A great place to see a concert.

Fake Beatles

Marilyn and I ventured out to the Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall last night to see The Fab Four, a Beatles tribute band, or, as Marilyn puts it, "Fake Beatles".  We have seen three different such bands over the years, and we are convinced that The Fab Four are (is?) the best "fake Beatles" that we have seen.

The act began with a guy impersonating Ed Sullivan and introducing the four "youngsters".  The first act was the group doing Beatles tunes from the Fab Four/Beatlemania/Ed Sullivan era while wearing the black suits and ties.  In the second act, they came out in Sgt. Pepper outfits and sang songs from that era, and then concluded with "John" in the white suit singing "Imagine" (which wasn't actually a "Beatles" song, but why quibble?), and closed with a couple of tunes from the Rooftop Concert Let It Be era.

I was most surprised that the group did "A Day in the Life" which is so musically intricate (and is often rated as The Beatles' best song of all by many), that it is hard to duplicate outside of a studio, but this group did a terrific job of it.  They also sang "Revolution" and that number really brought down the house.

Let's face it, no one, NO ONE, can be THE BEATLES, but when the originals are no longer with us, good tribute bands have a place in show biz, if only to expose whole new generations to such terrific music.  So, if you ever have a chance to see The Fab Four perform, by all means do so.

And a word about the venue.  The Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall is a true gem.  Small and intimate, terrific acoustics, and free parking on the street outside the Hall.  True, the old style wooden seats can be tough on the posterior, but it's a small price to pay for seeing a concert at such a great old place.   If you have chance to see one of your favorite acts there, by all means do so.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

It was a spur of the moment thing.  We see a story yesterday morning in the Post-Gazette about Mary Chapin Carpenter's appearance at the Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall last night.  I go on-line to see if tickets are still available.  They are, and I buy two, and we have a nice date last night to see one of our favorite singers!


Carpenter is currently on the road promoting her new CD, "Ashes and Roses" (which I also purchased via iTunes yesterday) and the stop in Homestead was the first stop on this tour that will run through October.  She performed for an hour and forty-five minutes, and while she did most of the songs from the new CD, there was still lots of the old stuff - Shut Up and Kiss Me, Saturday Night at the Twist and Shout, Stones in the Road, Passionate Kisses, and many, many others.  It was a terrific show from a wonderful and talented performer.  A really fun night for us.  By the way, this was not the first time we had seen Carpenter in concert.  We saw her a few years back at the Palumbo Center when "Stones in the Road"  was released.  It wasn't until we got home and checked the release date for "Stones..." and saw that it was 1995 that we realized that "a few years back" was actually SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO!!!  Wow.


A word about the venue.  My grandparents lived on Ninth Avenue in Munhall, and the Homestead Library was almost - but not quite - literally in their back yard.  I had ridden past that Library building countless times as I grew up, and was well schooled in the family lore of how my mother, Ruthie Madden, learned to swim in the pool in the Library building alongside with two future US Olympians, Lenore Kite and Eleanor Holm.  For all of that, I had never been inside that building myself until last night, so I somehow felt that I was closing a circle in my life.  Kind of a neat feeling.


The building was dedicated in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie himself.  The music hall is on the smaller side, it does have a balcony, but it gives a very intimate feel to the performance and the acoustics are excellent.  They have an interesting line up of acts scheduled to appear in the months ahead, including a Beatles tribute band in December.  Parking is on the street surrounding the library and is free.  Kind of an under publicized gem in terms of a performing arts venue in the city.