Tonight we will be among the old people gathered to listen to (and cheer for) Men at Work, Toto and Christopher Cross

 

Only one of these original members of Men at Work will be onstage this evening at Blossom Music Center.

I have long since passed the age when you fret over the fact that the music you listened to as a teenager is now regularly played on "oldies" stations. That happened years ago.

On the spectrum of musical fandom, I'm at the point where I willingly attend cheesy, nostalgia-laden reunion concerts. I revel in being surrounded by other mid- to late-middle-aged people whose enthusiasm is perhaps muted compared with what it once was but who can still be described as "spirited."

I also make no apologies that the average age of the crowd at the concert I'll be attending tonight (along with my brother Mark and sister Debbie) is likely to be older than 50 and possibly pushing 60.

That's the demographic I expect will turn up at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, this evening for a triple bill featuring 80s acts Men at Work, Toto and Christopher Cross.

I suspect most in the audience will be there because they're particular fans of one of those three bands. For Mark and me, anyway, the clear headliner is Men at Work.

I have been a pretty ardent MAW fan since 1983, when the first 45 I ever bought was their single "Down Under" and the first cassette I ever purchased was their album "Business as Usual." (Northeast Ohioans will appreciate the fact that I bought both of these items at Zayre's.)

The thing is, as is so often the case when bands tour decades beyond the peak of their popularity, the group performing tonight under the name "Men at Work" only has one original member. That would be lead singer and guitarist Colin Hay.

Mark (along with his son and my nephew Mark) and I have seen Colin perform live several times as a solo artist, and we saw this incarnation of Men at Work play a few years ago. You can say we're fans.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also looking forward to hearing Toto play its hits, notably "Africa" and "Rosanna." And there's no doubting the talent Christopher Cross brings to the stage with his "Sailing," "Ride Like the Wind" and "Arthur's Theme."

But I'm there for the Men, who actually now include two women. One is a wonderful musician named Scheila Gonzalez, who plays saxophone, flute and keyboards in a way that eerily recreates the sound and vibe of the late Greg Ham, Men at Work's original multi-instrumentalist. (NOTE: Since writing this, I've come to find out Scheila won't be there tonight, but is instead touring with Weird Al Yankovic. Darn.)

The other is Cecilia Noël, Colin's wife and a talented singer and performer in her own right.

We'll have a good time, I have no doubt. It will be 2-3 hours of letting the music take me back to when I was much younger and much dumber. And also skinnier. With more hair.

You couldn't pay me to actually go back to that era of my life and live it again, but I don't mind taking a temporary trip back in time. I look forward to the whole thing.

As long as the bands don't play too long, of course. I need to get home and get my sleep, you know.

I don't go to a lot of concerts, but the one I'm attending tonight is special for reasons beyond music

By Derek Russell - https://www.flickr.com/photos/184778751@N03/48954387052/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83341876

If all goes according to plan, this evening I'll be joining The Marks (my brother and my nephew, who share that first name) at the Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio, for a night of music and storytelling offered up by one Mr. Colin Hay.

If you know Colin at all, it's likely as the lead singer of the highly successful early-80s pop group Men at Work. In the years since, he has forged a nice solo career, having released more than a dozen albums.

Colin has always meant a lot to me, in part because Men at Work was the first musical act that really caught my interest. I bought their single "Down Under" on 45 in 1982, the first record purchase I made using my own money (from my paper route, of course).

I never got to see the group perform live before they broke up, but I've seen Colin in concert several times over the past 20 years. Nephew Mark is better at keeping track of this than I am – he has been there with me for every one of these shows – but I think tonight might be the seventh time I've been there in person to watch Colin work his magic.

And "magic" is actually a pretty apt word. Not only is he a wonderfully talented songwriter and musician, he's also a master of between-song banter. He tells stories and jokes in an understated Scottish way that holds audiences captive.

(Colin is known the world over for being from Australia, but he is Scottish by birth and lived there until he turned 14 and his family moved Down Under.)

Anyway, while I'm looking forward to the show, I'm more looking forward to spending some time with my brother and nephew. We probably don't get together as much as we should, but when we do, it never fails to be memorable.

Your takeaways today, then, are these:

(1) Make the effort to spend time with people you love.

(2) Colin Hay is still making music and is worth checking out if you've lost track of him.

I'm in that stage of life when the musicians I admire are getting old

While my musical tastes have certainly broadened over the years, the artists at the top of my "Favorite Musicians" list have not.

One look at the most-played songs on my phone will quickly reveal that I am a hardcore fan of essentially three men: Sting, Colin Hay, and Billy Joel.

There are others in there I love, many of which are 80s bands that are still going (somewhat) strong like Duran Duran, The Fixx, and Huey Lewis and the News. And then there are my second-tier singer-songwriters, which include Jim Croce, James Taylor, Bruce Hornsby, David Francey, and so on.

But Messrs. Sting, Hay, and Joel are in the heaviest rotation and have been for decades now.

They are also, respectively, 69, 68, and 72 years old.

I am not sure how this happened.

Well, I know how it happened. Time moves on. We get old and so do those we admire, even if we think they shouldn't.

It recently occurred to me that there will someday very soon be a last Sting album and a last Colin Hay album. You could argue there has already been a last Billy Joel album, as he hasn't put out any new pop/rock material since 1993.

It has always been something of an event for me when one of those men released new work. In the pre-Internet days, I would consult a newspaper or maybe Rolling Stone to see when an album was due, and I would show up at a record store that day to buy it.

Then I would come home, pop it into my stereo (yes, a stereo) and listen intently while following the liner notes.

Now it's a little different. I still get excited when my guys have new material, but rather than me having to go out and get it, it just shows up on Apple Music. It's just...there, all of the sudden.

That doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music itself, of course, but it does take some of the pageantry away from the actual release.

Anyway, I try to appreciate new music from Stingo, Colin, and BJ more because I know they each have only so many more new songs in them. Sting has an album titled "The Bridge" coming out later this year, while Colin recently put out an excellent disc full of covers and has his own new music slated for release in the not-too-distant future.

I will savor every moment of it, knowing it won't be long before each of these guys will need a hearing aid just to listen to his own music.

Famous people I've met who would never remember me in a million years

Many people have a story about an encounter they've had with a famous person, whether it was in an airport or restaurant, at a sporting event, or wherever.

And by the way, I always say you should never judge celebrities based on your one encounter with them, good or bad. You're not always at your best (or worst), and there should be some understanding on our part that in the end, they're people just like us.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I've had the opportunity to encounter a few famous types. I have friends and co-workers who have met far more stars and world-class athletes than me, but I'm going to say I've met more than the average person.

And by "meet," I mean you have to shake their hand and/or have direct conversation with them, no matter how brief.

Here's my list:

Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Sarah Silverman
I met the three of them on the set of a movie in which my company is pretty heavily integrated. The release of the movie, titled "Marry Me," has been pushed back a few times and is now set for February 2022. The photo at the top of this post is Sarah and me. She might actually have a faint memory of me because we talked for a good 10 minutes on the set and she once did a skit about Vitamix on "Saturday Night Live." She was nice. Owen Wilson was also nice, though I didn't get to speak with him for nearly as long. As for J-Lo, she was sitting in a director's chair and I just walked up to her, introduced myself, and quickly said how excited we were to be involved in the film. She was soft-spoken and polite to me, but clearly I wasn't supposed to do this. I think I interrupted her while she was studying her lines or something. I chalk it up to being a hayseed Midwestern PR guy who didn't know any better.

Gerard Butler

Met him a few years ago at the Sundance Film Festival. He drank lemon curd directly from one of our Vitamix containers. That's a true story. He was extremely friendly, in part because he had clearly been imbibing that evening. I asked if I could send him a Vitamix to use and possibly post about on social media. His response was, "You sure can!", only he inserted an extremely bad word in gerund form between "sure" and "can." It was in his Gerard Butler Scottish accent, which made the whole thing even better.

Sting
I wrote about the encounter my nephew Mark and I had with the Sting-ster a few years ago. It was July 1996 and we met him before a concert. I have seen Sting play live 10 times in the past 33 years, but this was the only time I actually got to shake his hand and briefly converse with him. He was a little distracted in that he was about to go out and play a show in front of a big crowd, but he was also used to these little meet-and-greets and was very nice about the whole thing.

Octavia Spencer
Had my picture taken with this wonderful actress a few years ago after she gave a speech in Cleveland. I was one of maybe a hundred people with whom she shared a handshake, a moment of small talk, and a quick photo. And then I moved on. And so, I'm guessing, did she.

Colin Hay
My roster of truly famous people gets really thin really fast, but I enjoyed meeting Mr. Hay, the former lead singer of Men at Work and someone whose solo work I've followed and listened to regularly for three-plus decades. This also happened with Nephew Mark, and it was after a show Colin played at the Winchester in Lakewood, Ohio. Terry always makes fun of the fact that in the photo I took with Colin, he has a sour expression on his face, while in the photo of Colin with Mark, he was smiling broadly. I choose to think he was just overwhelmed meeting his #1 fan (me).

Bob Barker and Meredith Vieira
This was when I was a contestant on The Price Is Right and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, respectively. I will not go into detail here, since Terry will once again accuse me of bringing these experiences up at every possible opportunity. I will only include links to The Price Is Right video here and the Millionaire video here. And that's it. Really, I won't say anything else about this.

Dave Koz
Dave is a big deal in the smooth jazz world. A supremely talented saxophonist. You either know him or, as in most cases, you don't. But I think he led Arsenio Hall's house band for a while. And he used to appear regularly on "General Hospital." And Terry and I have become friends with him, so he counts. He's the only person on this list who definitely does know who I am.

Bernie Kosar
My Cleveland friends certainly know who Bernie is, as do football fans from around the country. He was the face of the Browns' franchise in the 80s and early 90s, and he is a big fan of Vitamix. In fact, if you saw Bernie five years ago and then looked at the photo on the right, you almost wouldn't believe it's the same person. He has really slimmed down and now works to help others understand the value of proper nutrition.

Hockey Players You May or May Not Know
Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux, and Marty McSorley. This was when I was sports writing. All very nice gentlemen. The first two are famous as two of the greatest hockey players of all time. The third was famous for punching people. Covering hockey taught me that in 95% of cases, the fighters are the nicest guys you'll ever want to me. Off the ice, that is. On the ice, they are likely to cause you permanent facial damage. I met Marty off the ice and he was a delight to talk to.

Other Athletes That, Again, You May Not Know
And again, this was from my sports journalism days. Carlos Baerga, Kenny Lofton, Dennis Eckersley, Johnny Damon, and Warren Sapp are on the list. There were probably others, but we're really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel now, so let's stop.

The point is, almost none of these people would (or could) ever remember who I am, but I remember all of them. Such is the nature of fame.

What was the first song or album that you bought (or downloaded)?

There comes a point in the lives of most people when they develop an interest in music, and at first it's generally (but not always) the music that happens to be popular at the time.

The first song I ever bought for myself was the Men at Work hit "Down Under." I bought it in 1982 at Zayre's, a local discount/department store, on a 45 RPM record for something like $1.75. Maybe it was less, I can't remember.

I was in seventh grade at the time and the music of that 1982-84 era really shaped my taste for years to come. I still listen regularly to Men at Work, and particularly to lead singer Colin Hay, who has had a great solo career over the last 35 years. I even met him once.

From Men at Work I quickly branched out to The Police, Steve Miller, Duran Duran, The Fixx, Flock of Seagulls, Billy Joel, and a whole host of other artists whose 45s and cassettes I would regularly purchase. These were songs that had strong melodies, interesting lyrics, and quite often the combination of synthesizers and saxophones that I liked.

What about you? What was the first song or full-length album you bought? When did you buy it, and more important, why did you buy it? Feel free to comment directly here on the blog, or on whatever social media channel you use to access us (Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn).

Come and do the iPod Shuffle with me

It has been a couple of years since we last did the iPod Shuffle, the game in which you put your iPod (or equivalent digital music player) into shuffle mode and let everyone know the results, along with any commentary you would like to add.

No cheating on this, by the way. You have to report the first five songs that come up when you hit shuffle no matter how embarrassing they may be. Feel free to respond in the comments section of the blog itself with your results. Or, if you're someone who comes to us through Facebook, you can do it there, too.

Here's what my iPod just spit out when I let it go all random on me:

(1) "Seasons of Love" – Donny Osmond
Wow, that got really bad really fast, didn't it? There's no way I can justify having this song. It's from the musical "Rent," which of course is the manliest of all musicals. And it's sung by Donny Osmond who is, um, the manliest of all singers. I just really like the tune, OK? And plus I've seen Donny Osmond perform live twice, which is in no way something I should have just typed. Let's move on...

(2) "Going Somewhere" – Colin Hay
I have a lot of Colin Hay in my library. You'll remember him as the lead singer of the Australian band Men at Work back in the early and mid-80's. I've been keeping up with his solo career ever since and even got to meet him 10 years ago. Good guy.

(3) "In Your Eyes" – Peter Gabriel
This is a hard song to escape if you listen to radio stations that play 80s music, as I do. It was probably the prom theme at a few schools back then, and it actually holds up well over time. Also, it includes some vocal work by Youssou N'Dour, a Senegalese musician who has never gotten the credit he deserves.

(4) "Message in a Bottle" – The Police (Live in Boston - 1979)
I have 11 different versions of this song in my iTunes library. Some are live, some are recorded. Some are by The Police, some are by Sting as a solo artist. And one is by a band called The Swingers, who recorded an entire album of Sting covers as cheesy, horn-based instrumentals. This is probably my second favorite Sting-composed song behind "The Lazarus Heart."

(5) "Grim Cathedral" – David Francey
Chances are you don't know who David Francey is, though his name might ring a bell if you're Canadian. Or if you're into folk music. If you're a Canadian AND a folk music fan, then you darn well better know who he is. David is an outstanding musician from the Toronto area who has won multiple Juno Awards, which is like the Canadian Grammy. He's also a Facebook friend of mine who might see this, so if you could pretend that you're as big a David Francey fan as I am, I would appreciate it.

Songs that make you think of your kids

Parents, do you have songs that automatically put you in mind of your kids, for whatever reason?

You probably do, and I'd be interested in knowing them. Feel free to post your kid-associated tunes in the comments below (those who got here via Facebook can also post there).

Here, for what it's worth, are the songs I connect with my children:

ELISSA (Age 19) - Billy Joel's "Goodnight, My Angel"
When Elissa was a baby, I would take care of her all day from the time she got up around 8:30 or 9 a.m. until the time I left for work around 5:30 p.m. This was one of the greatest times of my life, and it gave me the chance to put her down for naps every day. Sometimes when she was almost asleep but not quite, I would sing this song to her and she would close her eyes. Probably to avoid my singing, but I like to think it's because it comforted her. One of Billy Joel's best songs, for my money.

CHLOE (Age 16) - Sting's "All Four Seasons" and Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl
You really wouldn't know it by the young woman she is today, but Chloe could be a tad, um, volatile when she was little. To the point that my family was genuinely frightened of her. The year she was born, Sting came out with "All Four Seasons," a song he wrote about the fact that his little daughter's emotions could (and would) turn on a dime. Perfect timing, perfect association. And "Brown-Eyed Girl" was one Chloe and I would sing together in the car years ago, so I'll always connect it with her.

JARED (Age 14) - Stompin' Tom Connors' "The Hockey Song"
Bonding with your dad over sports is a cliche of the American male, but it's still a genuine thing for millions of fathers and sons. Jared and I share a lot, but I think my memories of young Jared will always be the time we spend at hockey games. If you to Lake Erie Monsters' games early enough, you can always hear this classic by Canada's own Stompin' Tom Connors, who passed away just a few months ago. Hockey, for the record, really is "the best game you can name."

MELANIE (Age 12) - Elizabeth Mitchell's "You Are My Sunshine"
There are, by my count, 4 kajillion versions of this song floating around. But none are better than Elizabeth Mitchell's, and it always makes me think of little Mel. Melanie will be a teenager soon, but she will forever and always be "little Mel" to me. She was the baby of the family for a long time before Jack came along. I remember singing this song to Infant Mel when she refused to fall asleep at night. It rarely worked, but it gave me a chance to hear it, which was a decent trade-off for the sleep deprivation that resulted.

JACK (Age 7) - Colin Hay's "Looking for Jack"
Jackie has always loved to come across his own name in books and music. This was one of my favorite tunes of all time even before he was born, but you can bet it shot up my personal list once we decided to give the name Jack to our second son. Colin Hay, by the way, tells a good story about this tune's origins involving Jack Nicholson and a Simple Minds concert.

So let's hear it: What songs make you think of your kids?