Eric Carmen died this week. He was a singer, songwriter, musician and founding member of the power pop band The Raspberries. The band, formed in Cleveland in 1970 from the remnants of local bands The Choir and Cyrus Erie, enjoyed a wave of success from a string of albums and singles. They split up in 1975, with front man Carmen releasing his debut solo album in November of that year. Riding high on — not one but two hit singles (both based on melodies by Sergei Rachmaninoff) — Eric Carmen went on a promotional concert tour in early 1976 as the opening act for America. When it stopped at the Philadelphia Spectrum, I was there... for some inexplicable reason.
In April 1975, I attended my very first rock concert with several of my friends. I had no idea what to expect, but when it was over, I immediately began thinking about my next concert! I began scouring the entertainment pages of the newspaper looking for concerts coming to the Philadelphia area. Concert tickets could cost in excess of eight dollars. As a 15 year old, cash was not easy to come by, so I was pretty discerning about which band would be the recipient of my hard-earned money. Nearly a year to the day after my first concert, I decided to relinquish seven dollars and fifty cents for a floor section ticket at the Spectrum to see America and Eric Carmen. In hindsight — almost fifty years later — I'm still not sure why I chose this show as my second foray into experiencing live music.
I was — in no way — a fan of America. I didn't own any of their albums, or any of their 45s, for that matter. Sure, I was familiar with their songs. How could I not be? They were a fixture on the radio in the 1970s, with such ubiquitous and non-sensical songs as "Horse with No Name," "Sister Golden Hair" and "Ventura Highway." In 1976, however, I was listening to Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Queen and Elton John. America's easy going, acoustic guitar-y, breezy folk-rock stylings were not in the same category as the harder rocking flamboyant bands I was partial to. Why, then, did I fork over almost eight bucks to see them live? I honestly don't know.
With tickets in hand and the concert date still a few months off, I broke down and purchased History, a greatest hits compilation America released in late 1975. I already knew most of the songs on the album from hearing them — repeatedly — on the radio. I may have listened to the album all the way through once, before switching back to my old favorites. History sat — unplayed — at the very rear of my blossoming record collection. I could hear America's songs on the radio at any given moment. I didn't need to play them by choice. I'm still not sure why I bought the album in the first place.
The date of the show rolled around. I honestly don't remember too much about the show. I don't remember who I went with. I don't remember how I got there. I do remember that America's performance was boring, especially when compared to the theatrical antics of Alice Cooper, my only reference for concerts at this point. Alice and company danced and cavorted with eight-foot-tall tarantulas and a menacing Cyclops. America — Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek, and Gerry Beckley — with their close harmonies and three acoustic guitar attack, barely moved a muscle during their show. They ran through hit after familiar hit with little to no between-song banter or audience acknowledgment or even movement. They never moved out of the front-and-center positions they took at the show's start. Their final song — "Sandman" — was about a raucous as they got... which was not at all.
Eric Carmen, as I recall, was pretty entertaining. In addition to his two monster radio hits — "All By Myself" and "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" — Eric peppered his set with some pretty upbeat numbers from the Raspberries catalog, including the sly and bawdy "Go All The Way" and the power ballad "Let's Pretend." He also joked with the audience and moved about the stage with his bandmates. When Eric Carmen concluded his performance, the night took a palpable nosedive. (A quick check on the internet revealed that America didn't have another Top Ten hit until 1982.) I didn't buy a T-shirt that night and I didn't buy anymore America albums.
Eric Carmen's solo career slowed down after his first album. He had success writing songs for other artists. His inclusion of "Hungry Eyes" on the soundtrack of the film Dirty Dancing showed promise of a possible comeback. But when the film's popularity waned, so did Eric Carmen's. More recently, Eric Carmen showed himself to be a tin foil hat-wearing, QANon-following conspiracy theorist on social media.
But, boy, could he write a pop song.
And I'll never know what I was doing at that show.
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