So we were a little bummed out upon hearing the news this week, and our thoughts went back to happier days...specifically Labor Day Weekend 1986, when the Monkees' 20th Anniversary Tour made a stop at Marriott's Great America. A wonderful show complete with fans of all ages screaming at the top of their lungs. We still have our rather grungy-looking trinket from that day, along with the memory of dating the lovely Susan Griffith.
ps: we have a Montrose Momento too, someplace, but
once again we're too lazy to go dig it out.
7 comments:
Yeah, Jones and Montrose too. Ouch.
Man, that "trinket" is squalid even by my pencil-grubbing standards! How amusing that you got it, and still have it!
I happen to have 2 questions:
1) Which Monkees staged this performance? As in, how many of the original 4 showed up?
2) Who snapped the picture?
Answer 1: The Monkees were Mike-less the night we saw them. From what I gather, he was in on the planning for the tour, but it grew too big for him to commit for all of the shows. He played with the rest of the guys a couple nights after the photo was taken at The Greek Theater in LA.
Answer 2: The photographer was a "Hey, fella, why not get a photo of you and your girlfriend that I'll stick in this little souvenir slide-viewer thingie?" kinda guy. Sort of the early version of today's practice of taking digital portraits of people losing their lunch on rollercoasters and then trying to sell them to the hapless victims as they stagger off the things.
Incidentally, The Monkees' 20th Anniversary tour sold out almost every date and was one of the top grossing tours of the year.
3 Monkees is pretty good, I must say.
I have the complete Monkees series, by the way, albeit on a dying media - VHS tape. I wonder if, in this day and age, one can simply stream any episode one might wish via Netflix?
Is there a worthy I-was-there tell-all book by any of the Monkees about being a Monkee?
I have a copy of Micky's I'm a Believer: My Life of Monkees, Music, and Madness buried somewhere deep in the archives--I'll send it along to to you if you're interested.
I just ordered Monkee Business: The Revolutionary Made-For-TV Band and The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, and I'd be happy to pass them along when I've finished reading them.
Cool. And thanks much for the kind offer to share. I found the Micky book at our local library, however, and put in a request for it, so I'm good there. The library also has The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, so I'll be able to check that out some day, too. I added it to my library "remember this" list.
What our library lacks, unfortunately, are CD's of the complete Monkees discography. They have, instead, various best-of collections and the Anthology. Somewhere along the way I need to get my hands on the original albums. Nancy has the 1st Monkees album on vinyl, but that thing is more skip than play.
One last contribution, I think. The most recent episode of Sound Opinions did a post-Davey Monkees thing. Well, sort of. Much of the program included interview content from 2011 with an author of a Monkee's book. The URL link to the Sound Opinions page where that episode can be downloaded as an mp3 appears herewith.
Just finished reading I'm a Believer and quite enjoyed it (short as it was). I am mildly grubbed - our library system does not have the Monkee Business book which looks like a good one.
Anyway, thanks for the inspiration to hunt that one down!
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