No disrespect to my wonderful girlfriend Annie, but one of my favorite things to do is sitting alone for two-plus hours and losing myself by listening to some great live music.
It’s a double bonus if compelling storytelling accompanies the songs, and that’s what I and a nearly sold-out crowd of baby boomers got last weekend with rock ‘n’ roll/folk legend Roger McGuinn at the Clark Center in Arroyo Grande.
You need a special kind of talent to command the stage solo and entertain people with just your guitar and voice.
It’s even more impressive if you’re pushing 85.
Dressed in black with a cool fedora, McGuinn hit the stage shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday to perform “So You Wanna Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” with his signature Rickenbacker electric guitar.
“Whenever I play it, somebody says hey, that’s a Tom Petty song,” he chuckled.
I knew right then it was gonna be a fun, memorable afternoon.
He quickly switched gears to acoustic and played “My Back Pages,” the first of many songs that revealed his special kinship with another musical legend, Mr. Bob Dylan.
So many cool stories were interweaved with his various originals and cover tunes, interesting interactions and collaborations with Bobby Darin, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. McGuinn even played a Leadbelly blues track that he learned from his first music teacher before graduating from high school.
After recounting his early career, McGuinn got into the heart of his musical catalog following a brief intermission.
Focusing on his Byrds tenure, we heard heartfelt renditions of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the band’s only number one hit and a long Dylan song that McGuinn rearranged to less than three minutes.
We also heard Pete Seeger’s protest song ‘Turn Turn Turn,” a trippy “Mr. Spaceman,” and the misinterpreted “Eight Miles High.” McGuinn set the record straight, explaining that “Eight Miles High” originated from a conversation with bandmate Gene Clark on a transatlantic flight from London to New York; it’s not a drug song as many music critics believed.
My only quibble with his performance was he gave us no retrospective on his 1990 collaboration with Petty on the excellent Back to Rio album that produced such folk rock classics as “King of the Hill” and “Someone to Love.”
I’m not a big indoor afternoon concert guy, especially on a very warm Indian summer day, but a few hours tucked away in cozy Forbes Hall with a pop/folk/psychedelic rock icon like McGuinn served up the perfect tonic.
And I don’t think the sun missed me at all.