Jimmy Buffett at Jiffy Lube Live

"Narcissism on the Beach"

Saturday, September 1, Lori and I drove to Northern Virginia. We had been gifted with a pair of tickets to see Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band at Jiffy Lube Live (formerly the Nissan Pavilion). My colleague and friend Alex Drumheller e-mailed the faculty at Heritage on Thursday asking if anyone wanted to take over his hotel room at the Dulles Hilton for Saturday night and go see Jimmy Buffett. Duh. But, seriously, thanks, Alex!  Lori and I have both seen Buffett numerous times, in both inside and outside venues but have lamented in recent years not having seen him for at least twenty years. Hmm, about the amount of time Hannah has been with us. Don't worry Hannah, we'd pick you over a Buffett concert anytime. With Hannah at college, however, the way seemed open to take Alex up on his offer and we were lucky enough to get to do so.

A little about the trip and then some comments about the concert.

The hotel was very nice and couldn't have been easier to find. We got there around three, went into their in-hotel lounge and ordered lunch, then went up to our room, showered and got ready to leave. The venue is only about 12-13 miles away, but we had no idea how to get in or what traffic would be like so we left around 6:30 and by 6:45 were off I-66 and in line to the facility. When we pulled off, we drove several hundred yards up a road to a line of cars in the left lane. Very quickly it filled up behind us until I'm sure the line stretched out onto the highway which was about a mile away. We were in this line, bumper to bumper for the next 45-50 minutes. Moving ahead a yard or two at a time we crawled the Police directed route into the parking lot. From there it was a very short walk to the gates and suddenly we were in the midst of a very familiar Caribbean-themed party. Now this we understood. The staff were friendly, but in charge, no closed bottles of any type, no chairs more than 9" tall (more about this later). So people were being handed large plastic cups (maybe 32 oz?) to pour their water into and the small collection area was filling up with chairs. Above us was a tall hill (maybe 75 feet tall) with stairs going up on each side. We showed our tickets and began the climb, marveling at the creative costumes people wore and the higher we went, more and more surprised by the size of the hill. I had read you could rent chairs for $5 so had elected to trust my reading and leave ours at home. Ours would not have made it in as they were taller than the allowed height. We got to the top and there was a tent where volunteers working for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) were renting the chairs. $5 was the price and feeling we were contributing to something good in the midst of this bacchanal we moved over to the lawn to try to find a place to sit. The lawn was filling up very fast and spaces were limited but we found a spot to the right of the stage and set our chairs up. Now, here is the first lesson about the lawn for us aging baby boomers. At this facility, the stage was about 100 yards away. Buffett, when he came out looked to be about an inch tall. The other thing about the lawn is it was basically the seats of the great unwashed masses. It was an unbelievable mass of people, constantly moving, yelling, laughing, but more than anything, drinking. Heavily. No, very heavily. How they could afford it is beyond me because a beer was $12. They were huge beers and if you were in a bar, one would have filled an evening. I watched several people drink four or five. Multiply by 12, children and you've spent for beer more than the tickets cost. More about this later also. When the concert ended we waited in our seats for a half-hour or more to let the place empty out. At that point the Police were checking to see why people were still there (more to come) and we just picked up our trash and headed out. Leaving the facility was not the issue entering was. When we got into line, we were out and onto I-66 within fifteen minutes and back to the hotel in thirty. Very smooth and easy.

Now to Buffett. A few observations about the evolution of a Buffett concert and the passing of seats from boomers to the present post-college generation.

The show started a little late, probably because the traffic coming in was still dragging its way onto the site. But eventually "Hot, Hot, Hot" kicked off over the sound system and while the crew continued to fine-tune the stage setup the party kicked in out in the seats. The sky was turning dark but the lawn was absolutely covered with people and more were pressing in. Finally the drummer, Roger Guth took his seat and the rest of the band strolled onstage then our one-inch tall object of joy walked onstage and the band kicked into a very energetic and quite beautiful "One Particular Harbor," a great choice for a lead-in song and this was a charging, electric version. I remember giving my friend Betsy Mulderig a cassette tape copy of this album at FIT and her dancing around the studio on breaks listening to this. A great start to the show.

Now, Buffett has been doing this for 38 years (and he told us so several times) and has at least 28 studio albums. I began my interest with Buffett in the early 1970s with High Cumberland Jubilee, A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, and Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. I was fascinated with his willingness to find new ways to use words and the combination with interesting country rock rhythms (I was well into my love of country rock). With 28 albums there have to be a few songs in a concert he simply has to sing. Think Fins, Margaritaville, Cheeseburger in Paradise, Volcano, Come Monday, Son of a Son of A Sailor. That's already a big list. So for longtime fans like Lori and I it was a question of which songs we loved (that weren't Buffett required performances) we'd get to hear. Now, I love A1A. I consider it Buffett's one whole album masterpiece. It's been a long time since that was released in 1974. Interestingly, probably my two favorite albums, albums I'd take to that desert island were both released in 1974. The other one is Jackson Browne's Late for the Sky. Decried at the time as "...public therapy" for Jackson Browne and "...too sad and depressing to listen to" it has become one of my favorites for its imagery and wonderful music. Now isn't it interesting that my top two picks showed up in 1974 and are both by guys with the initials JB? Okay, you don't care, I'll get back to the concert.

When Buffett came out, everyone stood up and remained standing for the entire concert. Thank god for the huge video screens to either side of the stage. Otherwise, we'd have seen nothing. We had found a nice place to sit, but as the lawn filled to bursting (I personally think the venue just kept printing and selling tickets as long as people kept ordering them). So many, many younger, early to mid 20's kept shoving in and of course a 6'2" guy wearing a silly looking porkpie hat (really?) shoved in front of us with several girls and kept pulling more and more people in as the night went on. They all had their phones out and were conducting loud conversations with friends in other parts of the place, "...yeah, we've got a nice spot, come on over..." and he moved back and forth between this girl and that, swaying to the music but paying no attention to the band. One minute he was blocking my view, the next, Lori's. But after about 8 or 9 songs, he and his entourage were gone and a new party of three moved in. Again, a guy about 6'3" tall, another guy about 6' tall and a girl. She was flirting with the taller guy, the shorter guy was busy the entire time taking photos with his phone of the two of them together. All three were involved in conversations at the top of their lungs with each other, laughing hysterically at various inanities involved in this flirtation process, and when unoccupied by their interaction, they texted and photographed each other with their phones. I only noticed one time they appeared to even know there was a band and it was during "Margaritaville" when Buffett's audience shouts "Salt, Salt, Salt" in this sort of hedonistic pseudo-gospel call and response section of the song. Other than that, they paid $50 a ticket to get absolutely fall-down drunk on $12 beers while doing what they could have done at a neighborhood bar. They were so unaware of everyone around them that the larger guy was almost stepping on us. Anyway, this lack of interest in anyone but themselves and willingness to pay a high price for a ticket to a show they clearly had no interest in was repeated ad nauseum all over the venue all evening which spurred some thoughts. This lack of awareness of others is the origin of the title "Narcissism at the Beach."

I thought  about the times I have already seen a Buffett concert and what this event has now become. Way back when, I was fascinated by his songwriting and that is what I went to see and hear. It has now become a huge, multi-hour singalong with the master of escapism and poet to hedonism himself, and a multi-hour standing ovation to boot. Did I sing along? Yes, I know all the words, so why not? I sounded good, too, not that anyone could confirm that. But I digress. Buffett's humor shines through every part of his music and the show is no different. There's a huge screen behind the band (the A-V Club is successfully employed) where the show started with a film of mermaids (in Sarasota Fla. swimming) and as the song moved on it slowly became apparent that Buffett was in there swimming with them with his hands above his head making the "Fins" sign. Subtle, but funny. I wonder if many people noticed? Mostly they are involved with their costumes, and fin-heads and getting drunk. Not that I look down on drunks listening to Buffett. The writer of "God's Own Drunk" deserves a little leeway if his fans like a beer I guess. Lori saw a guy standing there swaying in his own drunken haze with "God's Own Drunk" scribbled in large letters on his t-shirt. Like he wanted a Buffett shirt but would rather buy beers than merchandise. Funny. It was a place full of little interesting images like that. Loads of men wearing coconut shell bras and grass skirts, women in bikinis as if they were actually at the beach. It was hot enough for that, but...

Anyway, Buffett writes in his songs about a time that those of us in our mid 50's and up can identify with. Our dad's and granddad's were World War One and Two vets and we can visualize the things he writes. He writes about "...sending the old man home..." (from WW 2 in the Pacific) "they'll mothball the whole damn fleet..." or gives us images of a steamship leaving port and faces fading until they are two small to identify. We are old enough to remember a steamship, and World War 2 and mothballed fleets so the writing rings true for us. The tunes match up and have the feel of something a sailor might call familiar in that time. To me, that is part of what I want to see and hear. To his newer, younger fans, the music and imagery of those songs is not the attraction. They come for the party. To be there and be able to say they were there. That's okay if that's what you want; he makes his money regardless. Okay, I have wandered again. A Buffett show now is a huge party, a debauchery in the seats, but still a job onstage. But there is still that connection to the past that the older members of the audience can remember so he's sort of straddling two worlds, worlds he invented to be sure, but at least one of those worlds can't put their phones down long enough to listen and that was a shock.

The setlist was great, and included an acoustic section with a video tribute to Andy Griffith that included "Piece of Work", "Pencil Thin Moustache" (another homage to the '40's and '50's) and finishing with a stunningly beautiful cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross". What a treat. He did all the expected songs and a few unexpected ones, "Who's the Blonde Stranger," "Banana Republics," and "A Pirate Looks at Forty" from my favorite, A1A. He also did several encores with a rousing "Brown-eyed Girl", a great version of "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" with lead guitarist Peter Mayer doing a credible job as Alan Jackson and of course, "Fins" and a second, final encore by himself with an acoustic version of "Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season / Last Mango In Paris".

So to end this meandering piece looking for a reason to exist, it was great to see Buffett again. but the lawn is not the place for aging baby-boomers. The stage is too far, the sound was poor at best and the almost amazing number of fall-down drunks was just astonishing. Watching them trying to leave was just sad. There were people there who literally could not stand up. Not one or two. Dozens or more. So, yeah, it was a great show. Buffett is in great shape and looks like he loves what he does. But I cannot help but be wistful for the Buffett I grew up listening to.