Nothing Like Live Rock to Roll Back Good Memories

A friend and I, equally disenchanted with our meaningless little lives, once cooked up dueling fantasies.

Which would you rather do, we asked each other: be a baseball player on a monthlong hot streak of game-winning hits that brought the crowd to its feet . . . or, be a rock star on tour for a month and receive nightly adulation from screaming fans?

Notwithstanding we were in our early 30s when we concocted the scenarios, such is the stuff of teen-ager daydreams.

My answer invariably was, I’d be the ballplayer . . . I mean, the rock star . . . I mean, the ballplayer . . . I mean, the rock star.

After attending opening night of the Eagles reunion tour last Friday, the answer is so much clearer. Am I too old for fantasies?

For the sheer power to move people, can anything touch music? And for many of us who have come of age in the last 35 years, can anything touch rock music?

“After 15 years, here we are again!” a man called out to a friend Friday night, 15 minutes before show time, as they settled in the $115-a-seat section. “Boy, this is going to be a good night!”

It would be easier for my little essay today if I could describe some palpable buzz in the crowd or some crystallizing moment that captured the preconcert spirit. Truth is, things were pretty ordinary. You’d have thought the Boston Pops was about to perform.

“Anybody bring any chicken?” a man said to his friends as they nestled in on blankets on the lawn seating. Just a few feet away, a concession stand offered Evian water for $2.50.

Hardly an obvious scenario for anything momentous. Woodstock it wasn’t.

And yet, the night became a special one for thousands of people.

When it was over, I was once again awed by the power that singers and songwriters wield. Even if the 15,000 brought their personalized memories of the music, there was still a common bond. I didn’t need to know why the couple behind me in their 40s was hugging as Don Henley sang about the “wasted time” that we all fear we may have spent. I didn’t need to wonder why everyone was so amused by Joe Walsh as he almost literally belted out his lyrics to “Life’s Been Good” or why all 15,000 of us had fun singing the chorus line “He’s Cool!” as it flashed on the video screens next to the stage.

Maybe in a society where we have to be wary of the guy standing next to you, it’s comforting to suspend that because of shared musical experience. At Friday’s concert, we were 15,000 strangers with no secrets among us.

This week, I asked Jon Wiener, a music professor at UC Irvine and author of a book on John Lennon, why the appeal lies beyond the sound of the music.

“Music for some reason, and especially pop music, which is ephemeral, is tied to a specific moment, and it can trigger very intense memories, even flashbacks of a moment when this song was new and popular and you listened to it a lot,” he said. “We don’t have that kind of experience with lots of other parts of the culture, partly because pop music is tied to a particular moment.

“There’s also something about the collective experience of being in a big crowd that’s kind of a celebration, that’s very different than listening by yourself to your own records.” The result, Wiener said, is “that you can get an amplification of your feelings with all the other people who are there.”

One of the interested spectators Friday night was Jack Tempchin, who wrote the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and co-wrote “Already Gone.”

While he was getting ready to perform last night at the Marine Room Tavern in Laguna Beach, I asked Tempchin about the Eagles’ music.

“The thing is, that it’s real,” he said. “They were never a band that ran across the stage a lot or jumped on the amps. It’s real, and there’s a lot of content. If you listen to the songs, that’s what struck me. They’re really moving, there’s a lot of thought behind them and a lot of content in the songs, which you don’t get from most music.”

I asked what it felt like to hear his songs sung in front of 15,000 people, most of whom know the words and can put a memory to it. “When they did ‘Already Gone,’ I was completely happy right there,” Tempchin said.

When I told him I was miffed the Eagles didn’t play “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” Tempchin good-naturedly pointed out they didn’t play it the last time he saw them perform 14 years ago, either.

I was shamelessly gushy in talking to Tempchin, largely because I think “Peaceful Easy Feeling” is a work of art. “A song starts out being a personal thing and if gets out there (as a hit with the public), it’s a miracle,” he said. “After it leaves you, then the song is beyond your control and you look at it and say, ‘Gee, they’re playing it in Istanbul.’ ”

Wow, from Istanbul to Irvine--all because of a three-minute record.

It may be a fool’s errand to explain why the Eagles reuniting is any kind of a big deal. I suppose if you asked the 15,000, you’d get 15,000 different answers.

But if nothing else, you’d come away with some sense of this 20th-Century phenomenon called rock music.

How could I ever have thought being a ballplayer could hold a candle to this?

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.