Who's Left to See?

Now I can die a happy man. There is little left to see and hear. Oh, I know all about the 1,000 places I'm supposed to visit before I die, but I've been to Door County, and I've been to Angkor Wat so everything else must be somewhere in between. I was at Disneyland before there was a DisneyWorld or even EuroDisney, and having lived most of my life in the Midwest, I've hit all the extremes; it took this past year, though, for me to check off my list a couple of final concerts: Marshall Crenshaw and Graham Parker. I was too young to see the Beatles when they were big (and I don't think they ever appeared in Kansas), and now...well, let's just say the chances are slim. Hell, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (the album) is forty freakin' years old this month! Seeing Graham Parker in concert this past weekend in Chicago capped a fabulous musical year. I saw an Elvis Costello concert last summer from a distance of about ten feet ($30); I sat in awe at a Marshall Crenshaw concert this spring from a distance of about 30 feet (free...and with free popcorn and free soda: a senior citizen's ideal date).
When my musical son Ryun tipped me to a Parker appearance in Chicago, I had to go...this was the third of the punk/new wave/angry young men triumvirate of the early 70s whose lyrics I have mostly committed to memory. As it turned out, Parker performed at the Old Town Folk Festival Academy (or something like that) to a crowd of no more than 300 people or so. The tickets were cheap ($20), and the big glasses of lemonade were reasonable, too. Jon Langford, the opening act, is also a musical icon even though I didn't know it. He was fabulous as well. Thus, there is/are no more rock performer(s) that I really wish to see live...Buddy Holly won't make it, nor will Del or Ricky. That means all I have left is The Police appearing later this summer at Wrigley Field. While that will be cool, it will also be expensive (don't ask) and there will be far more people there than I care to hang with; cheap lemonade? not likely. Nobody recent interests me...that's why I stick with an iPod.
To recap:
Elvis Costello-$35 ten feet away
Marshall Crenshaw--free, with free eats thirty feet away
Graham Parker--$20, cheap eats fifty feet waay

Cost of seeing my favorite performers in one year? priceless.
I can die happy.