“Play some Styx, Chris!” a voice yelled from the darkness. Odd choice I thought to myself, most people yell out something along the lines of Free bird. By the way, don’t do that! There are a few songs musicians grow weary of performing. And free bird, although a great song, is one of them! “Renegade, Blue collar man!” Okay, now he was getting specific. I chuckled and began singing “it’s you babe whenever I get weary and I’ve had enough.” The crowd laughed and we finished our set without a glitch.
But as I was sitting on the tailgate of my truck drinking a warm glass of water between sets - That’s right, I said warm glass of water! It’s good for the vocal chords! Well, more room temperature than anything, but you get the picture! - a face I hadn’t seen in years approached from the shadows.
“Well, Chris.” He said. “I guess you did it after all didn’t ya!”
“Oh my God!” Kenny Johnson? Is that you? “
“Did what?” I asked.
“Got you a band and played some rock and roll”
“Yeah, Kenny! I guess I did.”
Kenny and I were best buds in grade school. And while all the other kids played Star Wars, we were busy putting together our pretend rock band. Kenny was more of a Kiss fan while I loved Styx, so the possibility of pretend artistic differences was very real indeed. In fact, our band pretended to disband on more than one occasion. You know how pretend musicians can be!! In many ways I never grew up. Oh, I got married, had children and went to work just like everyone else, but I never stopped pretending to be a musician. Hell, I even turned it into a pretty good avocation. People actually pay me to get up on stage and play music. Not much mind you! But they still do it!
However, I haven’t played a gig in awhile, and I told myself I would quit at the age of fifty. But that’s still a couple of years away, and I despise deadlines. So, I think I’ll just keep on keeping on until I just can’t physically do it anymore. Anything less would be an insult to my childhood pretend band!!!
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