University of Virginia Library

First Part

After about an hour there was
an intermission and the realization
came down that this was the end of
the first, not the second, part of the
show. It became apparent that this
concert was going to last until
midnight and there would be very
little time for those much-promised
encores. It was starting to become
serious. Everyone wanted to hear at
least 100,000 songs about big
waves, fast cars and amazing girls,
and there just couldn't be enough
time.

At 12:05 I knew the Oldies
couldn't be far off and I made up
my mind to forget the outrage
within me and enjoy them when
they came. And then came the final
insult. The Beach Boys left the
stage. They left the stage and
forced us to beg them to come back
and do each of their three (or was it
four) Big Hits. I found myself in
the paradoxical position of clapping
insanely and screaming approval at
a bunch of people at whom I was
very pissed off. Ten thousand
screaming dentists were forced to
extract each encore from five men
who knew exactly what the
audience wanted and had for three
hours angrily refused to give. Drag
City, Daddy-o.