Heat

By Ed Piper

Heat.

That's my lasting sensation, a day later back at home, of the Classic West we went to at Dodger Stadium the last two days.

I can still feel the heat and humidity, what with writing up here in the Inner Sanctum on the top floor of our vertical townhouse, despite its location in coastal San Diego. It's warm at the keyboard.

(Our son-in-law was so gracious to provide us with a portable air conditioning unit, and to set it up in our bedroom for sleeping beddy-bye at night. We added another unit in the family room. The rest of the house gets warm.)

When I found out about the Classic several months ago, the only cheap (we're talking $250 per seat for the two days of rock 'n' roll--the more expensive seats were twice that) pair of seats I could find near each other were on the Reserved Level down the right field line. There were no available seats together left at our price level.

Anyone who's familiar with Dodger Stadium seating, and the even-numbered sections, knows that that means beating sunshine in the daytime.

As a kid I could spend all day at the Colorado Lagoon, where our mother took us in Long Beach to swim, in the sun. Not anymore.

I'm a wimp.

So, when the Doobie Brothers opened up Saturday afternoon, Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons playing their first guitar notes at about 5:15 p.m., I was reluctant to sit with my insistent wife in our seats (four chairs apart--row T and row U, Section 28). I was for hanging out in the tunnel, or even more, sitting temporarily down the shaded left field line, which we did earlier.

After the hour-and-15-minute set, including "China Grove", "Taking It to the Streets", and "Black Water", all sounding great with Johnston's unique, melodic voice and precision playing by the whole band, I was sweltering. It was 88 degrees, with high humidity.

We ran for the tunnel to cool off, hit the restrooms, and buy a snack. Along with the soaked back of my shirt, I noticed several other guys in the right field restroom with shirt backs equally soggy.

On Sunday, we got wiser. After a day of travel and being away from our home base, and settling into our hotel in Monterey Park 11 miles away from the stadium at midnight, we were a little tired. Dianna said she wanted to make sure she didn't suffer a problem from the heat. I was in agreement. So we mutually agreed to stay on the concourse during the latter part of Earth Wind & Fire's opening set yesterday, peeking through our tunnel at Section 28 (with Sections 24 and 22) to get periodic glimpses of the band's dance moves while we listened to the music reverberate through and over the stands.

I dodged in the restroom and laughed at how clearly I could hear every note and phrase of EWF's songs, even inside the walls of the "bano"!

With the humid conditions and all, we still had a great time. It's a rare treat to be able to hear that many good bands of our era in such a short period of time: Besides EWF and the Doobies, we were entertained by excellent playing by the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Journey (though without singer Steve Perry), and Steely Dan (probably the lesser of all six bands for us--and Donald Fagen was missing his cofounding partner Walter Becker).

Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac was flat and not sharp in her singing--now 69 years old--and Christine McVie, a personal favorite of mine with a beautiful voice, didn't sound great with the sound system. Outside of those, we were impressed at the quality of each band's performance as far as instruments and vocals.