When I was becoming a teenager, Steve Miller Band's The Joker was the song to know… What can I say, it was Colorado. All?the older, drinking kids knew it by heart and would sing it in my junior high hallways with knowing, leering glances and nods as if all the lyrics were full of hidden perverted subtext meant to scare the nerdy seventh graders, aka “sevies” like myself.
So of course I became a Steve Miller Band fan in name. Meaning I pretty much only knew the Joker song and jumped at the chance to see them in concert when my friend Bill called to ask me. I had been to concerts with my parents, but this was like being a grown up, if you ignored the fact that Bill's dad would be there too.
It was a weird time, awkward and even more so as I had just gotten over a debilitating horrible crush on Bill the previous year, and he was now in the midst of a similar crush on me. Still, I brought my friend Gina and we were all set on having a good time. I had even listened to my sister's Joker album as prep.
The concert was at Red Rocks, the weather was lovely, and I mostly just remember thinking (probably correctly) everyone around me was older, drunk, and on drugs. I could even SMELL drugs which to me smelled like apple flavored gum. It was exhilarating and scary, but it all disappeared when Steve Miller played Abracadabra.
I didn't know this awesome song was by the same guy!! It wasn't on the Joker nor did it even sound like the same band – but I knew the song, like really, really knew it, I had listened to is all the time as a kid and had fond memories of the magical video.
Even later when we learned that someone had thrown up in Bill's jean jacket, that may or may not have had a beloved Batman patch on it, we still went home feeling awesome. We had partied, as in stood around and uncomfortably nodded our heads to music we were supposed to love, and made it home safely with Abracadabra jamming in our brains.
But what do you think?