Star-Struck Groupies

As a surprise for my 65th birthday, John purchased VIP tickets for us to see Michael McDonald - a former member of the Doobie Brothers. In The Stanley theater, a Baroque movie palace - built in 1928, we pick up our badges and signed-photos and stand in line for the security check. For our Meet and Greet session with Michael we are directed to wait in an alcove where ten-year-old Sarah, a young pianist, and her mom patiently stand. Sarah loves Michael McDonald. Her brother, at eight, got Disney World. Her birthday present, like mine, is Michael.

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Waiting as well is pretty Connie, late thirty’s-ish, with lots of blue eye make-up, a streaked blonde Farrah Fawcett hairdo, snug royal blue top, and, on her arm, a tattoo of Michael McDonald’s signature under the title of her favorite song of his “Take it to Heart”. This is the fourth concert of his she’s attended, she tells us, including shows in California and Atlantic City. She loves him but likes others too – Rob Thomas of Matchbook Twenty and Ambrosia. Connie shows us pictures of her with Michael, one where he’s admiring the artwork on her arm. Comparing different photos, she points out to us how much weight Michael’s lost, “Over forty pounds,” she says.

“Can I ask you a very personal question?” I say.

“Go ahead. What?”

“Do you have a significant other?”

“No.”

“I just wondered how he’d feel about your love affair with Michael.” I smile.

She smiles back. “Honey, look, Michael’s 62 and married. If a boyfriend couldn’t handle that then he wouldn’t be worth it.”

A pair of sisters and another woman wait with us as we chat. I ask them, “Do you think I’ll be allowed to kiss Michael?” We all laugh. My husband raises his eyebrows then smiles. Little Sarah fidgets unable to decide what she’s going to say to the celebrity.

“What’s your favorite song of his?” I ask her.

“What a Fool Believes.”

“Hmm, I was humming that all day,” I say.

Our numbers have grown to about twenty when we are called into a room backstage.

“Stand in line here. When it’s your turn, give me your cell phone and I’ll take pictures of you with Michael,” a friendly guy tells us.

“Can I ask him to autograph these for me?” I point to our two brochures.

“Sure.”

Sarah in her grey turtleneck dress, white tights and grey sparkly flats is first in line but her mother asks me, “Will you go first and Sarah will go after you? She’s feeling shy.”

Sarah pulls her turtleneck up over her face.

“Here he is,” says my husband. I turn and a shorter-than-I-expected, slightly built man with thick white hair and a close cropped white beard in black jeans, sneakers and long black shirt walks in and stands in front of a grey screen. I hand John my jacket and purse and smile at Michael who smiles back. We shake with hands similar in size.

“You’re her birthday present,” says John from his place in line.

“Happy Birthday,” Michael says to me.

“Thank you.” I give him the brochures and a pen. On one, he writes “Love” above his name - and on the other “Thanks.” As he signs, I lean in and say, “I love your voice.”

“Thanks, I hope it’s there for me tonight,” he says as he looks at me with blue eyes, a skin tag under the left one.

I am next to him with my arm around his waist and his around mine. Our sides press together. I plant my feet and feel safe, grateful, joyful, and conscious of us holding one another with a light respectful touch.

His helper takes three pictures. As we part, I say, “Good luck tonight” and steeple my hands together at my forehead.

Three pictures are taken of John and Michael, and three more of the three of us, before John and I head into the theater and make our way to our orchestra seats. I look around at the theater’s golden, gilded architecture. A huge dome of stained glass claims the ceilings center.

On stage, one row away, the warm-up guy, a local keyboardist in a red shirt with a young man accompanying him on a beat board, is okay. I might have appreciated one of the vocals and the final instrumental, but five tunes are three too many for me. I’m here to hear Michael, especially when I consider the steep price John paid for our tickets. The opening act references Michael as a “humble, great guy.”

While equipment is switched out and a grand piano is wheeled in, Connie comes over from her orchestra seat.

“Did he know your name?” I ask her.

“Yes, when he came down the hall toward me, I said, ‘Hi Michael’ and he said, ‘Hi Connie.’” Her face lights up.

“I asked him how Amy is. She’s had cancer you know and he has borderline diabetes. So she has given him a hard time for eating the wrong foods on the road. And he listened. I asked him, ‘How much weight have you lost now,’ and he said, ‘Fifty.’ And I said, ‘You look good but don’t lose anymore because nobody likes a skinny Santa.’ He said he’s going to play next week with his sister Maureen. She’s great too. Oh, and asked I him if tonight’s play list could be given to Sarah after the show. You won’t believe how good Drea is. She’s his back-up singer. We’re Facebook friends. When she comes out, she’ll wave to me. You’ll see.”

Now Michael’s on the stage with the crowd clapping and shouting. Connie dashes back to her seat. He sits behind the grand piano, facing me with no one’s head between us. He says, “Thank you all for coming. Tonight’s concert is dedicated to a lovely young lady, Sarah, who is celebrating her 10th birthday.” And then his deep raspy voice, full of feeling and amazing timber brings us “Sweet Freedom” and the two women sitting next to me, one sipping a wine spritzer and the other a tall tumbler of red wine, dance in their seats and sing the chorus, “Shine the light on me.”

Michael rocks and I rock with him as he belts out his rhythm and blues. Next up a Doobie Brothers hit, “I’m Here to Love You.”

Two women a little to the left in the row in front of us get into it with their bodies bouncing and arms swaying.

With “It Keeps You Running,” I think, What pipes! He hits the highs. He nails the lows.

And with “I Keep Forgetting,” I am putty.

His bass player and lead guitarist, both with terrific voices, at times falsetto, and the drummer, all do a fantastic job backing him up in front of the deep red drapes. Apparently Drea has the night off.

Michael sings Marvin Gaye’s “Heard it Through the Grapevine” and then a song with the lyrics “Here’s to the good times…and…I can’t get enough,” presumably one of his originals which I don’t recognize.

Michael becomes serious and says to a percussive background, “With the election over, we’re Americans together… We cannot take our freedoms lightly including our freedom of speech…America’s greatest times are ahead of us…When the color of our skin is no more important than the color of our eyes that’s when we’ll be great again…”

Now he sings “Marching Down Freedom Highway” and he brings it, does not hold back, rocking on the piano, belting out his music, pounding and caressing the keys… “If you really want …If you want to love me…”

He runs his fingers through his thick white mane, throws his hair back and a shock of it falls forward.

With a soft, heartfelt spin, he pays tribute to Leonard Cohen’s “Alleluiah”. One of the women in front of me turns to another and says, “I requested this.” Every so often, between his throaty poignant verses, she screams, “Thank you Michael. I love you.” She cries the rest of the time.

I rock against John with gratitude as we hold hands.

Another Doobie number, one of my favorites, “Minute by Minute,” conjures up for me – the memory of cruising down a country road in a dear friend’s green MG convertible with that tune blaring in our ears.

To “This Is It,” the two women next to me, twenty-somethings, stand up for the chorus at the same time with their arms raised shouting, “Stand Up and Fight.”

Many, including John and I, rise, dance and sing to “What a Fool Believes”, and then the band leaves the stage.

“No,” I say to John, “I want more.”

The packed theater’s thunderous applause brings them back out.

Michael sits at the piano, quietly and beautifully plays and sings Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s, “What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love.” We all join in.

He pays homage to his band members and then his road crew, “How do we sound?” The crowd roars approval. “You can thank our road crew who sometimes set up for us as early as 8:00 a.m., and I want to thank Sarah again, and the people who have preserved this beautiful theater and you, the audience.”

“Jungle Fever” follows, and then “Taking it to the Streets”, which we all stand for. He takes his leave by coming to the front of the stage, stooping over and shaking as many of the raised hands as he can reach. A roadie comes on the stage, goes to the front and motions for Sarah to take the sheet of paper he’s extending. I beckon for the lead guitarist to shake my hand. He looks pleasantly surprised, comes forward, leans down, and takes it. Then Michael holds my hand, smiles, shakes drops of sweat from his forehead, and disappears behind the curtain.

NonfictionBeckie O'Neill