Always Something There to Remind Me

Everybody who knows me knows that I love music. I'm kind of a goober that way. As I've gotten older, my musical tastes have started reverting back to the songs I grew up with in the 70s and 80s (my Peter Frampton obsession is more than enough proof of this, I'd say.) I try to jump on every opportunity to enjoy some great tunes (and nostalgia) whenever I can (especially when it comes at an affordable price.) You can only imagine my delight when I learned that Naked Eyes were coming for a gig at the Norton Museum in West Palm. The band was probably best known for their hit "Always Something There to Remind Me" (they also had a hit with "Promises, Promises".) I recruited my two best buds from high school, Susan and Johanna and we all met up on Thursday night for an 80s flashback.


The concert was part of an event called "Art After Dark" at the museum, and it drew what can only be described as a decidedly mixed crowd. Kids, cotton tops, the up-and-coming young Palm Beach society set and ironic hipster douchebags. Yeah, I'd definitely call that "mixed". After we chugged a glass of wine (we found out we couldn't take them into the theater only after we bought them.) Johanna is tiny - she should never drink wine rapidly, but the results were kinda amusing. We went into the tiny theater and sat down. I didn't realize until later that one half of the band, Rob Fisher, passed away in 1999 (he had a hit with his own band, Climie Fisher, called "Love Changes Everything" - I still love that song.) The remaining member of the band, Pete Byrne, performed a fabulous "unplugged" session. I'm pretty positive that a large percentage of the people in the theater had no idea who this guy was - it was just a nice place to sit down for a few minutes. The group of "close to cotton tops" in front of us provided us with some good laughs. When Pete did a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man", he told the crowd that he performed it for Elton at a concert at Carnegie Hall. There was much conversation going on between them, and I could only think they thought he played at the Carnegie Deli. I did actually overhear this when Pete launched into a stirring rendition of "Peace Love and Understanding" by Elvis Costello: "Oh, not Abbott and Costello...." Yikes. The hipster douchebags set up camp in the aisle next to us and wouldn't shut up - I finally asked if they could move their riveting conversation elsewhere. Don't people have any respect anymore? It was like going to the movie theater. Sheesh! One sad thing I realized was that we used to go to concerts where women would sit on their boyfriend's shoulders and flash their boobs at the band. Now, I'm at a show where a man is holding his infant granddaughter over his head so she can see what's going on. What happened?


Overall, the concert was great...too short, but great. Pete had a CD signing after the show and, being the famemongering whore you all know I can be, I just had to meet him (and see if he knew Peter Frampton - he didn't.) He was awesome and very friendly. And I have a new photo for my celebrity wall!