Ohio Christmas : Saturday 20th: RAIN!

Each year my mother and my cousin Elaine get season tickets to the theater in Dayton. The first production of this year was the Beatles tribute band, Rain. My mother decided she wasn't too fussed about going, so she gave me her ticket and I went with Elaine.

The production was held in the Victoria Theater. The band, Rain, played live music - dressed ala Johnpaulgeorgeringo with costume changes corresponding to musical eras while 3 projector screens displayed images. These images varied between footage of Beatles crowds going crazy, live images from the audiance or band, news images from the 60s, psychodelic colors/swirls during the latter albums and remakes of Beatles photos and album covers featuring the musicians from Rain.

The juxtaposition of the early crowd videos - teenages screaming, fainting, and climbing barricades with the Saturday matinee crowd was stark. Maybe it was ALL the white hair - and not from any bottle of hydrogen peroxide. The audiance was relatively game and would stand the clap and some dance or sway, but they (we) never matched the fervor of those Beatles fans. And, I wondered how "Rain" felt about that. My mother thinks they'd be thrilled to be earning money, but I've had enough experience with musicians to suspect that they'd always like to see young women throwing themselves at them. (Maybe that happened on Friday evening's performance.)

The concert was fun and I was moved to tears (discreet tears - why was I crying?) by the second song of the show "All My Loving". Maybe I had just been too long away. And, while Marianna had proclaimed that it was "LOUD", I must disagree and state that I thought they could have used some greater energy on their crescendos. These peaks never reached the level of intensity that I thought was needed.

Afterwards, Elaine and I ducked into the Schuster to escape the cold as we traveled to our parking garage. There, they had set up the old Christmas windows from Rikes downtown store...and "Tikes" store. We didn't do any shopping.