Do you remember the old Barbara Mandel song “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool”? Well I was country before that. I cut my musical teeth on old Hank Williams songs, a little early Cash, and as I grew up I matured into the Nashville Sound with a heavy focus on Sonny James (who really should have been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame by now, but I’m not a musical bigwig who can make those decisions).

Because of this, I kind of missed the 1960’s, but for a different reason than most of my generation (”If you remember the 60’s, you weren’t there”). It’s only in the last 20 or so years that I’ve begun to appreciate the early Beatles stuff, and I’m graduallly catching up on some of the other bands.

My wife, on the other hand, has been a fan of Paul Revere and the Raiders since they first appeared on Dick Clark’s “Where The Action Is” in 1965. Knowing this, I exploited the information into an anniversary present to her last December by promising to take her to see the group last night at Troy University’s Davis Theater in Montgomery, Alabama.

It was a night that both of us will long remember. This group has 40+ years of entertainment experience in Paul Revere alone, and the other members push that number well over the century mark. It’s not just the music, it’s the way they interact with each other on stage. Sight gags and jokes abound, it was one laugh after another.

Among the highlights, Revere:

• Used a hairdryer throughout the night to get a few laughs, “cooling off” band members who were playing too “hot” and at one point using it to create a realistic effect of himself on a Harley traveling down the road to “Born to be Wild”
• Brandished a flintlock pistol to obtain band members’ “agreement” with his pronouncements.
• Used the front-end of his keyboard – a classic Ford Mustang — to good effect, flashing the headlights and activating the turn signals according to the action on stage

Here are a few pictures:

They encouraged us to sign the guest book on their web site (http://www.paulrevereraiders.com/), and I’m hoping they’ll show up here to view the pictures and note how much we enjoyed the show.

They’re on a cruise next week, then to Dick Clark’s theater in Branson, Missouri for darn near the rest of the year. If you ever want to see a first-class rock-n-roll show, Paul Revere and the Raiders should be high on your list!

Also linked at Publius Rendezvous and The Liberal Wrong.

TD