When I found out that
Peter Cetera was coming to town, I decided it was time to acknowledge the time in my life (in the late 90s, sometime in high school) that I had
Chicago's
Greatest Hits 1982-1989 in my CD player.
So some like-minded buddies of mine and I decided to go. By the way, when I say my buddies, I mean two sets of married couples. I was indeed the fifth wheel. But fuck it, the only V-Day I know is the day when the Allies finally crushed the Third Reich hordes.
Anyway, so we all arrived at Araneta Center early, to avoid the traffic. We explored Ali Mall a bit. I had Dairy Queen, pretty good stuff. Had a long, early dinner, and went to go get our seats. In the bleachers. We figured this wasn't going to be much of a visual spectacle so we could get away with the cheapest tickets, and just listen for Cetera's distinctive vocals.
Also we predicted that up in the bleachers, the men's room wouldn't have proper urinals and that a fight would break out. We were right on both counts. Haha. You had to pee against a wall, and a guy got up shouting because some other person spilled drinks on his pants. Nice.
So being in the peanut gallery is actually fun. I've never been. So this is where all the clapping and hooting comes from. Also, our bunch sang the loudest and cheered the hardest. I think being stuck way up in the back, and in the dark, emboldens people.
While we were sitting there waiting for the concert to start, we got talking about how this might suck. How Cetera might not have the license to sing Chicago songs and we'd be stuck with Peter Cetera as the solo artist. We only knew two songs from Cetera as the solo act (
Glory of Love and
After All). We had inadvertently lowered our own expectations and this helped a lot.
Finally, the orchestra (a forty piecer!) came up the stage and played a medley of Chicago hits. The crowd clapped enthusiastically and so did we. Until we realized that, oh shit, they're playing the songs now because Cetera really can't sing them. But that wasn't the case. Cetera finally came up, sang everything we wanted him to sing, except
Hard Habit To Break. He even got us to wave our cellphones in the dark. Pia brought binoculars so, once in awhile, we'd get a really good look of what was happening way below. Between songs we'd quip and comment, eat popcorn and drink watered-down softdrinks.
In a situation like this, I think it's always best to forgo all your pretense of hip and cool, and just sing your lungs out. We felt that if we went to this concert fully aware of our age, but young enough to embrace the irony of our own adult contemporization, we could come away having great fun. We were right.
