A Taste of Margaritaville

My uncle once told me that if I only went to one concert in my entire life, to make it a Jimmy Buffett concert. Well, I've already seen more than one concert in my life and expect to make it to more, but Tuesday night I finally took my uncle's advice. And for the price of a lawn seat and an hour's drive after work, I was transported to the Jimmy Buffett brand of island living.

My first exposure to Jimmy Buffett's music was actually through my grandmother. She's responsible for my taste in show tunes when I would spend summer days with her watching Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, etc. One day, she asked me to put in a new tape (that's cassette for the younger generation) in the stereo that she wanted to listen to. I knew I liked it as soon as the steel drums started and songs of margaritas and cheeseburgers came out of the speakers. I was happily bopping to the beat, helping my grandmother prepare veggies for dinner when after a long, spoken intro, the next song came on. To my abject horror, I heard Jimmy sing, "Why don't we get drunk and screw?" over the speakers accompanied by a large crowd. I listen specifically to lyrics of songs, but I wasn't sure how widely among my family that was known. With a quick glance at my grandmother, certain that I would be in trouble if I seemed to enjoy the topic of a song that was strictly taboo with children of my age. I furrowed my brow and pretended to focus intently on the carrots I was chopping just in time for my grandmother to look over at me. She said, "Ooh, turn the volume up, will you? I like this song. I think it's funny." Then she went back to her task and missed the shocked pause it took me to register her words and go turn the music up.

Years later, sitting on a grass on rented chairs, with a barbecue sandwich dinner in my stomach, I stood up and cheered with a vast, multi-colored, pot-smoking, drunk and festive crowd as Jimmy took the stage with the Coral Reefer band. Whether he sang gleefully of parties, sailing and surfing or poignantly of lost loves and past accomplishments, the crowd danced, sang along, and cheered enthusiastically. On the jumbo-tron video screens (we were too far away from the stage to see the actual band) he showed videos of his travels both around the world and around the Bay Area and other Parrotheads he's played for in between live shots of the current concert. He wore a t-shirt, flower-printed shorts and went barefoot on the stage - clearly a man who has made a life of doing things he enjoys. That's not a bad thing to accomplish in your life, I thought.

And for about four hours in the middle of a work week, I got to escape to a little island town called Margaritaville. I know I want to be back again someday.