Hey, Hey We're the Monkees Back in the High Life

3 of the 4 Monkees pictured above appeared

It was the fall of 1986 and my best friend was off at UofA while I was in Mesa going to Mesa Community College.  When it came to concerts, I had no one to go with me.

It was the year of the Monkees 20th Anniversary tour.  I will admit I watched the reruns in the early 70's.  My cousin, 9 years older than me, had caught the TV show when it was first on in 1966.  Of course, MTV was showing the program to a new generation of pre-teens.  My cousin needed someone to accompany her to this glorious spectacle.  Also on the bill was Herman's Hermits (who the Who first toured with in America in 1967), Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and the Grass Roots.

Not surprisingly, there was a new batch of screaming pre-teens at this show.  I am not sure how they made it through the 3 opening acts.  All I remember is my cousin singing to the Herman's Hermits songs.  

When the Monkees came out, it was just Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones.  Mike Nesmith only appeared at a few shows on this tour (Texas and Los Angeles).  But these guys were good entertainers and if you'd watched the TV shows you would know the songs.  The screaming pre-teens never ceased but it wasn't as bad as the Beatles experiences of the 60's when they would fake play their instruments because they couldn't hear each other.  I can actually say I enjoyed the show.

A month later on October 15, 1986, a fellow MCC friend of mine (and former high school friend) went with me to see Steve Winwood on his High Life Tour.  The beauty of this was that the concert was only 4.5 miles away and it was outdoors.  The opening act was Level 42 who had hits with "Something about You" and "Lessons of Love."  Unfortunately, all I could remember was the throbbing bass in all of the songs.  We are not talking melodic intense Thunderfingers-John-Entwistle bass lead guitarist stuff--oh no.  It was all I could hear--no other instruments.

Needless to say I was relieved to see them go and the piano chords of "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" start.  Winwood opened with an old Traffic classic, not one of the hits from Back in the High Life album.  How amazing is that?

Of course, Steve Winwood played at least half of the songs from this amazing album from 1986.  I remember "Back in the High Life" and "Finer Things" really standing out.  I also remember "Dear Mr. Fantasy", "Valerie", "While You See a Chance", "Arc of  a Diver" and "Gimme Some Lovin'".  He had an amazing band with him and he is an amazing singer and multi-instrumentalist.  

This same week of October 1986, I wished I had known about Neil Young's first Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View, California at the Shoreline Amphitheatre.  I found out about this 3 months later when I saw Bruce Springsteen and Nils Lofgren on the cover of Acoustic Guitar magazine.  A friend of mine ended up with a bootleg copy of the whole show (on videotape) so I got to see Bruce, Nils, Neil, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Robin Williams, etc., do amazing acoustic performances.  Here is picture from my scrapbook from that performance.  I believe they were doing "Teach Your Children" in this shot.  

Anyway, that is my story from 1986.  I still want to catch a Bridge Benefit one of these days.  If it would just coincide with October break for the kids....