The Search for Miss Direction: The Monkees!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Monkees!

I think at some point in my childhood I got stuck in some kind of strange time warp. It causes me (even now) to adore things that happened decades before I was born. Chief among these is my very strange love of sixties music - most specifically the Monkees.

I can't remember a time that I didn't adore the often mis-labeled "pre-fab four" I've known all the words to Daydream Believer (which remains my favorite song of all time) since I was six. While other girls my age loved New Kids on the Block and then N'Sync I had pictures of Davy Jones plastered to my walls. I can site Monkee dates and trivia for hours. I'm not sure that there's a Monkees song that I don't know at least 80% of the lyrics to. Kind of Monkees crazed :-p

After the death of Davy Jones in February I instituted a week of mourning at my house which included only Monkees music during that period. I was crushed that there would never again be the chance of all four of them reuniting. Papa Nez in his endless holdout had robbed us all. But a few months later when it was announced that Mike was FINALLY again joining Micky and Peter for a series of 12 concerts I knew there was no way that I was going to miss out. As soon as tickets went on sale I nabbed a pair to the Cleveland concert and invited my Monkees lovin' Mama to come along. This was to be the third time she and I have seen them in concert.

The big night finally came last night and we had a blast! After spending the day in Strongsville shopping yesterday we made it to the concert in plenty of time to scope out our seats and take in all of the crazies that had come out. If you thought I was a little obsessed I couldn't even begin to hold a candle to some of the things we saw. Mom and I agreed that it must have been all the Mike fans because we don't ever remember quite the level of extreme fandom as was on display last night. I really wanted to take pictures of some of what we saw but decided maybe it was better not to record such events.

I know that even the three of them will NEVER get together again to tour, so I enjoyed every second of the concert. It started a little shaky but the highlight of the night came towards the end of the concert. Micky came on stage to say that when they had started to put the tour together they knew they would do Daydream Believer but in Davy's absence wasn't sure who would sing it. Mike offered the perfect solution - letting the fans sing it. I was so moved to join two thousand of my closest Monkees fan friends in a wonderful rendition. So cool.