SO you remember last week when I was promising you a write-up of a show I'd be attending over the weekend? Yeah, I lied. Well, not intentionally. I meant it when I wrote it. But life happened, and Denise and were both sick this past weekend. (Actually, the whole damned house has been sick. Suffolk County would be wise to just burn our house down, like a medieval black plague castle, to keep us from infecting the whole community.)
Anyway, we had tickets to see Mannheim Steamroller at the Tilles Center this past Saturday, and I was looking forward to the show and hoping it would get me in more of a Christmas state of mind. I was especially excited, because last time we saw them two or three years ago, we did so at some crappy Atlantic City arena that sold us obstructed view seats without telling us, so we really couldn't see any of the video footage that the show made extensive use of. Tilles Center is a great place to attend a show, and I was happy I'd be able to actually see it this time.
But when Denise came home a day or too beforehand feeling terrible, and I started developing a hacking cough, I had a bad feeling that we weren't going to make it. I was right. Denise was still hoping to try -- the tickets were a birthday present I'd bought her, and she was really looking forward to the concert. But when she went to the doctor early on Saturday, she was basically told "No way, Jose!" They diagnosed her with a 101.4 degree fever and a sever bronchial infection.
As for me, I didn't actually feel that terrible. (Then. By the next day, I felt like my body had been turned inside out, and for the next 48 hours, I couldn't even keep my eyes open for more than 90 minutes at a time.) But I knew that the rest of the audience in my section wouldn't thank me for coughing non-stop through the whole concert, and probably infecting the hell out of the lot of them. It wasn't really any sense of social responsibility on my part, so much as it was not wanting to deal with the angry and disapproving reactions to my Typhoid-Mary-like presence. (I'd like to pretend I'm more noble than that, but what the hell. You guys already know better.)
Anyway, I was at least able to find the tickets a good home -- I pdf'd them to a couple of friends who I work with, and they took one of their sons who happens to be a huge Mannheim Steamroller fan. They enjoyed the show immensely (especially their son), the audience didn't have to catch our smallpox, and Denise and I got to rest for the night, which probably helped us to at least not get any sicker. So it all worked out. I hope to maybe catch Mannheim Steamroller next holiday season.
In the interim, as I do almost every year, I've at least picked up some new albums of holiday music to help lift me into the spirit of the season. They include the new Christmas CD from Celtic Woman; an older holiday album from Annie Haslam that I didn't previously have; a pair of Christmas albums from The Trail Band, which is a separate folk-project by Marv and Rindy Ross of Quarterflash; and a brand new piano-based album of instrumental holiday songs by none other than Rick Wakeman. So I'll hopefully get a chance to briefly tell you about each of them before the Christmas holidays hit.
Anyway, sorry I can't tell you about the Mannheim Steamroller show. Hopefully next year.
Until my next post, stay healthy, and keep your loved ones close.
