You'll never guess what my SIL and I have been watching when she gets home from school

[OriginalGeek]

8. They're on tour right now

so be careful what you promise.

I've told this story before so feel free to skip if you've heard it:

I've been going to concerts since the early 80s. Big arena shows and little club shows and most sizes in between but they have almost all be metal or at least metal-related (lol). When I first started dating my wife (1983-ish) she already had two sons (now mine) aged 7 and 11. They were huge fans of the Monkees (something I encouraged as I loved the show when I was their age) - it was in a mini-revival then on MTV. They watched it every day. And they also complained about me going to concerts all the time. Back then, their mother was a little leery of some of the places I went to see shows (underground metal don't get played on Disney property lol) so she was not too keen on me taking them with me. I woulda' happily brought them to a show but their mom thought Morbid Angel and Atheist and Obituary were maybe a bit much at the time. Ybor city in Tampa was a touch less savory then than it is now and that's where a lot of shows were.

So to placate them one day I told them if the Monkees - a TV band that hadn't done a new show since the 60s - ever went on tour I would take them to see that concert.

I'll be damned if TWO DAYS LATER they didn't announce a world tour. Just Micky, Dave and Peter - Mike was not into it then - but still enough of them to qualify. So that's how I ended up at the St Petersburg fairgrounds watching 3/4ths of the Monkees entertain the crap out of a happy crowd. Opening bands were Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and the Grass Roots. My oldest still listens to them all.


I'm kinda hoping my granddaughters will ask me to take them to Monkees show.