For those of you in the hard of hearing section
07/30/09

There’s no substitute for seeing Aerosmith in concert to make you realize that you aren’t 20 anymore - with the possible exception of hip-replacement surgery or osteoporosis.

I have been fortunate enough to attend two incredible concerts in the past two weeks, both with my guy, Bobby.

The first one was an outdoor concert at Superpages.com Center in Dallas where Aerosmith was the featured act, backed by ZZ Top.

This concert put a big, fat checkmark next to an item on my bucket list.

This week, we saw Rod Stewart at Nokia in Grand Prairie, backed by a band I had never heard of, and still have not.

While Rod Stewart was not on my list of prospective grooms when I was 16, as was Aerosmith’s lead singer Steven Tyler, I am a fan.

The atmosphere was electric, if not stifling hot, before ZZ Top took the stage and sweat became the new black in fashion that night.

People of all ages were at the show, ready to shake their groove thing despite the heat.

Halfway into ZZ Top’s cover of Jimmy Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” I noticed a couple- several rows ahead of us - dancing like two people at a Geritol rave party.

They were letting it all hang out... had the groovy arms going, pops was doing what I call the modified Brady Bunch-train dance step all over the place, the whole nine yards.

I thought to myself, “My God, the old people tonight, they are a-dancin’.”

Then I realized, these old people were my age - or at least in the general vicinity. That’s a real buzz kill at pretty much anything but a Barry Manilow concert.

When Aerosmith came on, I was sitting quietly contemplating the passage of my years when the couple just in front of me sprang into action.

The woman, who appeared to be at least somewhat younger than myself, was doing what I call the reverse Jed Clampett alternating with the frog in the blender move, while her man was doing the standard Caucasian male dance move (there’s only one), in which the male switches the weight from one foot to the other, and clapping occasionally.

When I looked around, several people my age looked like they needed medication for a movement disorder.

This caused me to assess what I must look like dancing at a concert, which in turn repressed my own need to express my musical appreciation.

However, it should be noted that during one of his songs, Rod Stewart actually did the reverse Jed Clampett, which means that dance move has officially gone global.

I have purposely not even told anybody about these incidents because it caused me a great deal of consternation and self-reflection, which is hard to do at my age.