When my oldest was in high school, I drove my teen and a friend to a music festival just outside Baltimore, Maryland. I wasn’t thrilled about it. Seemed dangerous. The festival was all day. My mom spide-y sense was on high alert. Danger lurked. As a high school senior, my teen needed freedom. High school graduation was a few weeks away, with college on the horizon. She was stretching her wings.
I drove and blathered about all the things that could go wrong and safety precautions she should take. She agreeably nodded. So did her friend. The drive was fast and both teens were anxious to get out of the minivan. I dropped them off. Hoped for the best. The friend’s mom would pick them up after the concert. Oh to be young again!
If you are in northern Virginia, check out the George Mason University Center for the Arts concert schedule for families.
If you are in Maryland and want to listen to music, check out Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, AMP by Strathmore in Rockville, or Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.
My heyday for music was the 1980s. I don’t recall which bands were playing at the music festival my daughter I attended. My musical journey began with listening to my parents’ modest cassette tape collection…Herb Alpert, the Fifth Dimension, Engelbert Humperdink, and the like, and Top of the Pops, which was a British show broadcast on Friday evenings for 30 minutes with live music acts. That was it. I didn’t listen to the radio as my parents didn’t have a radio in our home or in either of their vehicles, but I did listen to my Sony Walkman WM-4 with headphones or my simple record player.
When I was a British kid at an American college in the fall of 1983, I arrived with a Sony Walkman WM-4 and 3 cassette tapes: Duran Duran, Wham!, and Simon & Garfunkel Concert in Central Park. I must have heard Duran Duran and Wham on Top of the Pops. I have no recollection of why I wanted to listen to Simon & Garfunkel.
I was British at an American college but knew very little about British popular music. Weird, huh? On my first day at college, I met a guy who was extremely excited to meet a British person, but extremely confused as to why this British person knew nothing about British New Wave music. He kept reeling off band names and asking me if I knew them…Flock of Seagulls, Eurythmics, Talk Talk, Psychedelic Furs, Spandau Ballet. I knew none of them. I probably shared that I had Duran Duran and Wham! on cassette.
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