Scan's Corner: Theme Night:Shea

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Theme Night:Shea

So Tuesday was time for karaoke. I did this after watching what I thought was most of the All Star Game. The All Star Game that was played in Yankee Stadium. Yankee Stadium is getting all the love in its last year of existence. I had no problem with everyone celebrating Yankee Stadium, but I hate the fact that they are getting rid of Yankee Stadium. It's a good thing the new stadium is in the Bronx, right near the old Yankee stadium. However, it's a shame that they couldn't just make major renovations to the old Yankee Stadium using the same footprint. It would require the Yankees to play somewhere else for a few year while doing this. Somewhere like...

...Shea Stadium.

You see, the Yankees played for two years at Shea Stadium in the 70's when they made major renovations. They could have done it again. It would have been better because they would be the only tenants. You see the Mets would play in their new ballpark, Citifield. This gives the Yankees an opportunity to play in a bigger ballpark. This also will allow the Yankees to set a new record for attendance at Shea Stadium. A possibility for 5 million fans. That'll rub it in the Mets face. Meanwhile Yankee Stadium will still feature the same ground that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played on, instead the Yankees are going to play where they parked their car.

Anyway, Fox does such an annoying job doing tributes, their graphics look like they are done by an intern with "vision" and spoken by people who still believe in Santa Claus. It made me glad that Shea Stadium is being ignored. I can have my own memories of a ballpark that has featured many memorable events of their own. Their have been many rock concerts played here. When it was built, it was state of the art. A multi-purpose stadium that featured two upstart sports teams, the Mets and the football Jets. So, whenever a music act got too big to merely play in theaters, it was stadium time. So, that became my karaoke theme.

Rock acts who played Shea Stadium.

Since the All Star Game was playing at Jack's, there was a good crowd there. The game went on and on and on. So karaoke started late. When it did it was Billy Joel night at Jack's. I was no exception. You see, Billy Joel is playing a few dates at Shea soon. He is a legend especially in the New York area. He has filled up Yankee Stadium in the past but I think he's a Mets fan.One of my favorite Billy Joel songs is "Don't Ask Me Why". It's a familiar song but one that doesn't seem to be performed in the karaoke clubs. It's mid tempo, s song I felt safe doing. I didn't know the crowd but the song went over well. I was hoping to find an old clip of Joel singing the song. Unfortunately the best I could get is cell phone footage. It's not that bad though.

The second song I sang was "I'm Your Captain" or "Getting Closer To Home", I'm not sure what title is in parentheses. It's by Grand Funk Railroad, a band that was huge in the early 80's. The fans loved them but the critics hated them. They played Shea Stadium in 1971. They actually sold out their concert faster than the Beatles. I have only sang this song once before when I fist got back to Jersey. I didn't do good enough to make it a regular song. However, in looking for other Shea information I came across this great footage of the band at Shea. I love the enthusiasm of the crowd, Concert crowds were cooler than. The band was at the top of their game, which makes this exciting. A great song.

Of course the Holy Grail of concerts at Shea Stadium is the appearance of the Beatles in 1965. No rock music act had ever attempted to play at a venue as big as Shea. The Beatles of course were huge at the time. One of the highlights of the concert was the song "I'm Down". It's an average song in the Beatles catalogue but when it's done live it can be very exciting. Look at John Lennon going nuts on the keyboards. The sound wasn't that great for two reasons. They had not come up with the equipment to record concerts but no matter, the girls screams were too loud for anyone to care. Anyway, I like doing this song when my voice is strong and thankfully it was tonight. Here's a look.