So, last Saturday night, my son, my wife and I saw The Monkees at the Family Arena in St. Charles, MO. Technically, it was "The Monkees Present: The Mike and Micky Show". Which makes sense, since Davy and Peter have both passed away. Notably (to me), this was only 4 weeks shy of the 50th anniversary of the first time I saw the band! I actually was a little uncertain about going to this one, as they're getting pretty old (Micky is 74, Mike is 76). And Peter would not be touring with them. But at some later point, my son announced that one of his great regrets in his (still short) life was that I didn't take him to the 50th anniversary tour (in 2016)... Well, I couldn't just let that hang out there. When I realized the St. Louis date for the show matched up with his spring break from college, we had to go for it.
How was it?
Well, as I noted before, these guys are getting up there in age. And it is kind of noticeable. But, they had a great band with them (including Mike's son on guitar), and they put on a solid, and fun, show. This was the last show of their US Tour, and everybody seemed relaxed and having fun. I will note that Mike seemed to act his age a bit, and maybe lost his place once or twice. But it's cool, we're all friends here.
They played a great setlist, with a lot of deep cuts (especially Nesmith songs). And quite few pleasant surprises. The accoustic versions of Pap Gene's Blues and Randy Scouse Git were quite cool... They also played 2 songs from the recent "Good Times" release, which worked very well. I'll be making an iTunes playlist of the show (of course).
This won't go down in history as one of the greatest shows I've seen, but it was good clean fun, and I'm really glad we went.
I don't like to take photos during a show, but I did do a quick snap to prove I was there... Sorry about the poor quality:
And a nice review in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Aside: The Monkees are one of the few artists from my youth that have been overlooked for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. They released four #1 albums in 13 months, released a truly mind binding movie and inspired countless kids who were just a shade too young to have seen the Beatles on Sullivan (like me). (also on my list, The Doobie Brothers and Weird Al Yankovick).
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