Like many girls growing up in the 70s, I was obsessed with James Taylor and Jackson Browne.
Obsessed.
I had all their albums and listened to them in my mom's tiny apartment in St. Catharines, Ontario. Wait, let's correct something. I would listen to James Taylor and sit and cry, and look at myself in the mirror while listening to Fire and Rain on the nights my mom worked the night shift at the sweater factory.
I saved Jackson Browne for Friday night when I put on lipstick, mascara and cover-up to hide my pizza face and stared in the mirror thinking I'd like to be his girl. Jackson Browne was the most handsome hanger-on/friend/singer/babe magnet in the Eagles. (Fight me on this, Don Henley!)
I had a serious crush.
Last night, my teenage wet dreams can true and I was sitting in a room of 8,000 senior, bald, fat, grey-haired masked people waiting to see the boys of my summers so long ago. Most of the crowd must have had an afternoon nap before getting in their SUVS to travel the length and breadth of Ottawa to see the pair at the Canadian Tire Centre. (Is it still the Canadian Tire Centre or were the naming rights handed over during the pandemic to the guy who invented the Instant Pot just down the road?)
I have to admit I was primed for this concert. I took a gummie I purchased earlier from Canna Cabana. I was also in the company of my beloved, my bestie Suzanne and her husband Norman who live five minutes from that damned place and know all the secret routes and the best places for parking.
Covid kicked the shit out of the entertainment business so a lot of us were ready to groove, and shake our booties, even thought we looked really silly wearing masks. I also noticed nearly everybody was sober except for a few hipsters and valley chicks sucking on beers and dragging bags of popcorn to their seats.
Just as an aside, let me say that I rarely go to the hockey palace because I have been out of work for most of the past two decades and I can't really afford the tickets. So I was pretty shocked to see that there are more bars in that place than there are on Elgin Street. I said to self, self, why aren't there 25 R.I.D.E. programs every night there is a concert or game. And then I saw everybody drinking water and I had my answer.
Back to the concert. I couldn't wait to see the Jackson Browne who is not just excruciatingly handsome -- though he now is the spit of Kris Kristofferson (still ok!) -- and I sat there mesmerized listening to an entire set of songs I didn't know (I realized that I only had the Running on Empty album -- I stopped buying him after Lawyers in Love -- and I said to my beloved that I should have realized JB might have written a lot of other songs in 40 years. Still).
I was pumped to hear my song, Rosie, the one that has always made me swoon over these many years. I was that girl by the way, back in the 70s who was standing at the loading dock batting my eyes at the guy from the mixing board, trying to score a ticket. I believed in my youth that Jackson had written the song about me and dismissed all claims that the story was actually about a spurned roadie in a peaked cap who thought of me and gave himself a hand job. I listened to that song this week and realized that is exactly what he was writing about. Still! I love that song.
So imagine my surprise when Jackson Browne came out and told a bunch of lame Canadian dad jokes, and didn't play Rosie. If I were him, I would have thrown James Taylor off the stage at the end, sat down at the piano and sang that song for all the Rosies who spent $200 on a damned ticket to see me sing that song.
Oh well, I have learned over the years that the handsome guys will always disappoint you, knock you up, and refuse to pay child support.
In spite of this terrible error in judgement, I forgave Jackson who was still awesome, and handsome in tight jeans and trimmed beard. I would forgive him anything, even not playing Rosie.
Jackson Browne gave a whole concert -- not just a lame set -- and I was completely satisfied.
Then James Taylor took the stage, and I thought to myself, I should have married James Taylor instead of Jackson Browne (in my fantasy). I feel in my new found maturity discovered after a particularly difficult menopause, that James Taylor would have been a wonderful lover who would have studied the Kama Sutra and made my toes curl. He is the fantasy of all women of a certain age who just want a man who croons love songs, makes a half decent Buddha bowl and takes the car to change the tires.
There is nothing James Taylor wouldn't do for his audience.
He played and played and played and played, and wouldn't get off the stage, and I loved him for that. (Though I didn't appreciate his lecture about the importance of sobriety, given that I was half in the bag thanks to my friends at Canna Cabana.) I felt him looking at me as he smiled and told the inebriated few in the audience they were "fuck ups".
Look, James, it took me 40 years to discover gummies and I'm not giving them up. Not for a dildo, not for a spanking new eating regime.
This is a hill I will die on.
But I forgive you, James.
You gave 100 percent. You played every song, even Fire and Rain which I now realize that he wrote for my friend Suzanne -- and I hated her for it. And Norman should be pissed, too.
Still.
James Taylor, you are a jewel of a human being -- even if you didn't let Jackson Browne play Rosie.
You make me want to sit in the backyard tonight, play your songs and give up the gummies.
Almost.
(Okay, this review is not over. I'm including Rosie, and I don't care Jackson Browne didn't sing it last night. It's my blog and I control the set list.)
