"You're so smart you could have been a school book"

If you lived in north Georgia during the '80s and '90s and you liked oldies music you listened to Fox97. That's exactly what I did and I think listening to the oldies during junior high instead of the current popular music (grunge) influenced who I was and still am. My love of oldies still continues today even though Fox97 and its well known DJs Randy and Spiff have long since been removed from the radio dial. While I enjoyed the music I heard for the most part I didn't know who the performers were but thanks to a NBC miniseries which I've seen on VH1 a couple of times I learned that many of the best songs were by The Temptations. Today I had the chance to see The Temps in concert with the NC Symphony and it was great.

I was originally supposed to go with Tech Emily but her grandmother fell ill so she traveled to GA to visit with her this weekend. Scrambling to find a concert buddy my sister suggested one of her friends from high school that goes to Duke, Daniel. So Daniel it was and we had a great time. The concert began differently than what I expected with the first half being part of the "pops" series during which the symphony performed on their own, Rossini's La gazza ladra (The Theiving Mudpie), Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" from La Gioconda, Anderson's "Belle of the Ball" and "Blue Tango", and finally Rogers' Slaughter on Tenth Avene from On Your Toes. Yeah I didn't recognize the titles of the pieces either but I gaurentee you've heard at least two of them before - look them up.

After intermission the Temps arrived on stage to "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey). They opened with a medley of songs and I wasn't immediately impressed thinking they'd blown their voices from years of performing but they quickly warmed up and put on quite the show. Unfortunately only one original member remains, Otis Williams, and he has been keeping the Temps alive for 46 years (very impressive). They performed several songs I recognized but quite a few more that I didn't but most in the audience did. I was surprised by the crowd too, which was mostly white baby boomers but there were also quite a few younger people as well.

As for the performances, all around it was a great show and I'm glad I went. During the first half of the show there was a noticable electronic beep that was consistent and very distracting, probably a smoke detector or something with a battery dying. I reported it at intermission but during the Temps set it didn't matter as they were loud enough to drown it out. My complaint about the second half was that the backup band was amplified too loudly and I couldn't hear the orchestra as well as I'd hoped. Even with those two complaints it was a great show with enthusiastic performers and audience. I highly recommend getting to see The Tempations if you have the chance. Now I just need to see the Beach Boys in concert.

Here's a camera phone shot from our seats preconcert


Here's a video of "My Girl" (They encouraged getting phones out and calling somebody during one song to share the music)