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| Photo by Meghan Cafarelli |
On Labor Day, I accompanied my family to the New York State Fair to see an outdoor performance by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. It was only my second live music event since the start of the shutdown in early 2020. I first saw Jett in 1978, when her old group the Runaways played a show in Syracuse with the Ramones and the Flashcubes. I saw Jett and the Blackhearts in Buffalo in the mid '80s, and I saw them with my lovely wife Brenda (also at the State Fair) in, I think, 2014.
But this year's Labor Day performance was our daughter Meghan's first opportunity to see Joan Jett, a figure she views as iconic, an artist she's long wanted to experience in person. Although Meghan shares my passion for music, our tastes don't intersect all that much. But Joan Jett? We all love rock 'n' roll. We all love Joan Jett. We had to see this together.
And Joan Jett did not disappoint. Jett and her band of Blackhearts know how to put on a rock show, fast 'n' energetic, playing all the hits and fave raves, even one great non-LP B-side ("Oh Woe Is Me") for the faithful (like me). They opened big--"Victim Of Circumstance," "Bad Reputation," "Do You Wanna Touch Me?," "Cherry Bomb," bam-bam-BAM!--and kept right on hitting, rockers and ballads, from the days of the Runaways through the first decades of this 21st century. Meghan was pleased. Brenda was pleased. I was pleased.
The family that rocks together. Years ago, Meghan and I agreed that when she gets married, our father-daughter dance would have to be Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation." Obviously.
In real life, there is perhaps no greater super power than the ability to shrug off the disapproval of others. Dig what you dig. Love who you love. Be who you want to be, not whatever some gray they want you to be. Don't give a damn about your reputation.
That's the first paragraph of the Joan Jett chapter in my eventual book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). And now, Meghan is planning her wedding for 2023. On that happy evening, if fate allows, she and I will dance to the music of Joan Jett. And I don't really care if you think I'm strange; I ain't gonna change.
This week, we opened the radio show with Jett's "Fresh Start." The song comes from the documentary Bad Reputation (a film Brenda, Meghan, and I watched together), and the Blackhearts also played it in their set at the State Fair this year. There's an inherent appeal to a fresh start, as long as we retain the lessons and the good of what came before. Dig what you dig. Love what you love. And don't give a damn about your reputation. This is what rock 'n' roll sounded like on a Sunday night in Syracuse this week.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS are always welcome.
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