MATT BARRETT’S TALES FROM THE ROCK N ROLL CRYPT: Episode 5.
AND EVERYBODY DANCED
In the Golden Age of Chapel Hill Music people danced. When bands like Arrogance, Secret Service, The Fabulous Knobs, The Dads, and others played the Cats Cradle, The Station, Town Hall or the Madhatter, the club was all sound and movement. Everyone danced. Set lists were designed to get people up and dancing and to keep them dancing til the club closed. At the end
of the night the audience and the band were drenched in sweat, some people exhausted and others wondering where to go for more when they chased everyone out of the bar at 2:30 am. We, (as in The Dads), played mostly original songs, British pop on amphetamines, every song danceable, we had one slow song in our three set show and even that people danced to.
One day we decided that for all our success in Chapel Hill we were not really reaching the UNC students. In those days the clubs we played were mostly non-students, former students, grad students and people who grew up in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill or moved there because it was the only cool place in North Carolina. Undergrads, who mostly lived on campus, had their own clubs and somehow we got an opportunity to play one. We opened for Nantucket at Purdys on Franklin, a dance club above Sutton’s Drugs on Franklin Street, right across from UNC.
We started our set surrounded by beautiful blonde girls, dressed to kill, and boys who looked awkward, uncomfortable and un-hip, as we played our most rocking and danceable songs. Nobody moved. They just watched, listened, and clapped politely after every song. For a band that usually feeds off the energy of the crowd this was kind of disturbing, like doing an audition in front of several hundred teen judges.
When we finished playing we talked about the lack of movement and enthusiasm in the audience. Scott, being the only neurologist in the group, explained it to us.
“We all grew up watching TV. But, these kids grew up on television to a degree that is far beyond what we went through. We had Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert once a week. They have MTV 24 hours a day. This is the new generation. And you might as well get used to it. To them we are just another TV show to watch. The idea of dancing to our music to them would be like climbing into the TV and taking part in their favorite program. It’s a generation of watchers, not participators. And they are taking over. Our days are numbered.”
Pretty heavy stuff. It sounded like William Holden in The Wild Bunch talking about how the age of outlaws was coming to an end, because one day the law would hunt them down with automobiles and airplanes. It was an epiphany. The new world was coming and there was no place for us in it.
The rest of the guys packed their gear and went home to their girlfriends while I hung around to check out Nantucket, who were an FM-MOR band like Journey. They were loud, tight, professional, playing the kind of music I can’t stand, but playing it well.
And everybody danced.