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MICKY DOLENZ IN CONCERT: October 29, 2005!!!!!

Hi everyone! I went to see Micky Dolenz in concert Saturday night, and it was fantastic!!!!! I hadn't wanted to mention anything about it in advance, because I'm just superstitious that way sometimes, but I had had the tickets and been looking forward to this already for months! In fact, I'd been checking the theater's website ever since the show was first posted on Micky's website and bought the tickets online almost as soon as they went on sale!

I went with the same friend that I'd gone with to Micky's Live Broadcast at B.B. King's in New York City on June 3rd. She has been one of my best friends ever since our mutual love of The Monkees brought us together when we were 15! The concert was called "Hot Autumn Nights" and was actually a series of four different acts: 1)"Rare Earth," 2)Dean Torrence from Jan and Dean, 3)Micky, and 4)Peter Noone of The Herman's Hermits! It was a four-hour concert in total, and we had a great time!

It was so great to see Micky in concert again, and this was really the first time I'd seen him in a solo concert! The B.B. King's show was kind of a revue that he was hosting as D.J., and he also performed intermittently throughout the four hours of that show, but this was almost one straight hour of Micky, his sister, Coco, and Micky's band! I hadn't known how to expect him to dress, because he'd been very casual (black t-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, I think) at B.B. King's, but he came out dressed "to the nines" in a long, elegantly fitted black jacket over a red satin shirt, black slacks, and shiny black boots and wearing one of his currently trademark black hats! In fact, the whole band was dressed in red and black in one way or another, including Coco, who wore a sort of filmy black and red print blouse with black slacks and black sandals. It was a good effect!

I wrote down the whole line-up of songs, both so I could remember it always and so I could tell you guys about it! It was as follows:
1)The keyboard player, Dave "Loafy" Alexander, introduced Micky who came walking through one of the aisles of the audience to the stage!
2)Last Train To Clarksville,
3)That Was Then, This Is Now, during which he featured the writer of the song, Vance Brescia (who also happened to be a member of Peter Noone's band) on guitar!
4)The Girl I Knew Somewhere,
5)Different Drum (sung by Coco),
6)Bye, Bye Blackbird (sung acapella with Coco),
7)Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (with Coco and band),
8)(I'm Not Your)Steppin' Stone,
9)He did some dialogue about how Jimi Hendrix used to open for The Monkees and simulated what that was like by having his lead guitarist begin "Purple Haze" with him singing. Then Coco and other band members started chanting, "We want the Monkees!" He did a little bit of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" with more of that kind of interruption, too.
10)Too Much Monkey Business (Chuck Berry song),
11)A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You (for which he jokingly adjusted the microphone to a lower height for a second since this was really a Davy song!)
12)The Beatles' "Good Morning" which he introduced in the same way he'd done it a couple of times on his radio show, including at the live broadcast. (If any of you want to know the whole story, just ask me and I can tell you next time.)
13)Since I Fell For You (old standard which he remembers his mother singing),
14)Pleasant Valley Sunday,
15)Daydream Believer, and for an encore,
16)I'm A Believer (Micky dedicated it to his wife, Donna, who he said was in the audience.)

The concert was at the North Fork Theatre in Westbury, Long Island, New York (formerly known as Westbury Music Fair) which is a theater-in-the-round setting with a revolving stage, and my friend and I had a great view of everything onstage from our 6th row seats! We were only 3 & 4 seats away from the aisle that Micky went up and down when he first left the stage and then came back for his encore!

After the whole show was over we got in line to go to the "meet and greet" for both Peter Noone and Micky. Peter Noone had also been fabulous, and when I got close enough to talk to him I said something like, "you are so full of energy!" and he said something like, "it's a lot of fun!" There wasn't a real program for the concert, so I wanted him to sign my ticket, but all I could find was my ticket-shaped receipt, so I explained that to him, and he signed it!

Then it was time to meet Micky! I had written a long letter to Micky, which I had all prepared in a sealed envelope with his name and my return address on it. I made sure to invite him in the letter to check out this message board and told him that there's a really nice group of people who post here who would be absolutely thrilled if he stopped by to say hi! I gave him a code message to include if he posts, so that I would know it was really him. He accepted the letter and gave it to someone to hold and return to him later, so I don't know if he ever really read it (or will read it) or not, but I'm glad that at least I tried! I told him that my friend and I had met him at B.B. King's in June, and he said something like, "it's nice to meet you again." He signed my ticket receipt too (I was too excited to remember to offer him one of the CDs I'd bought for him to sign!), and then I asked if I could pose for a picture with him. Somehow or other I ended up squatting down next to where he was sitting, actually holding his hand while my friend took the picture! I'm still not sure how this happened, but he must have initiated it, because I wouldn't have had the nerve! Maybe he was trying to help me to get close enough for the picture or something, but I'll always remember that warm feeling of my hand in his! After my friend snapped the picture I got up the nerve to ask Micky if I could give him a hug. I gave him a sort of awkward hug with one arm while still holding his hand with the other! He actually turned his cheek toward me, and I wondered if he was inviting me to kiss him on the cheek, but I didn't have the nerve to do that! As I got up from our pose, I said "thank you so much!" and then it was time to go.

While my friend and I were waiting in line for the "meet and greet, " we had also seen Loafy, the keyboard player, standing and talking to one of Micky's daughters (I'm not sure which one, but I recognized her from pictures, and besides, she looks so much like him! [2006 Edit: I learned later that it was Emily, I think.]) in the meet-and-greet area, and I had really wanted to try to talk to them, too and maybe get a picture with them and/or autographs, but I was so dazed and star-struck after my interaction with Micky that I completely forgot everything else until we got to my friend's car! By then I thought it would be too awkward and strange to go back. During the set-up for Micky's performance I had called out Loafy's name, though, because I remembered him from June 3rd (and had been very impressed with his performance) and had talked to him a little bit after that show. He heard me and looked up, questioningly, pointing to himself, and I waved to him and smiled. He looked at me like he was trying to figure out who I was, but I'm sure he didn't remember. Then, during the show when Micky introduced him as "Dave Alexander," I again had yelled out, "Loafy!" and both Micky and Loafy definitely heard me and looked in my direction, but I don't know if they could see me or could tell exactly where the voice had come from!

I realize I sound more like a starry-eyed teenager in some of these descriptions than I do like the 44-year-old, happily married mother of two that I am, but such moments are few and far between, and it was great to be able to feel that way for a short while! Micky, if youre reading this, I just want to say thank you again, for everything!

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