A Night Out With Harry and the Potters

Tonight I "chaperoned" my daughter and two friends down to Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner to see Harry and the Potters. A good time was had by all.

Ralph was one of the few people in Worcester to deserve to be known by a single name. Ralph's was bought by Vincent, who coincidently owns Vincent's (aka Remote Office Bravo). Vincent is also maybe the second of three current Worcesterites to be recognized by a single name (the third being Jordan - as in Jordan Levy the former Mayor and radio host - not to be confused with Michael Jordan who around here is recognized as the fourth greatest basketball player in history behind Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Bob Cousy).

It was an excellent show. There were three warm up bands, the best of which was The Beatings out of Boston. The main act - The Harry Potters were just great. I had been hearing songs like "Save Genny Weasley" and "Wizard Chess" around the Lynch household for weeks. The two performers were just awesome. The best way I could explain it would be the analogy of if They Might Be Giants were constained to a single subject.

Technically it was not my daughter's first "rock" concert since she had seen Britney Spears in the past. We are all willing to forget that though - so I reflected on my first rock concert which happened to be Warren Zevon at WPI. My girlfriend's mom had to drive us since both of us were too young to have a licence. I had to explain to my girl's mom that Zevon was the guy who wrote "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me" for Linda Rondstadt. Without saying - there was not too much "action" on the ride home.

One of the guys at Ralph's mentioned that his first concert was to see of all people - Tiffany. I guess his younger sister really wanted to go and since an extra ticket was cheaper than a babysitter - he tagged along. The funny thing is - the guy is colorblind and his parents bought him a T-shirt from the concert. He told his parents any color except pink would be OK (since Tiffany was pretty hot). Of course the only color they had was pink. Since he was color blind - they just told him it was "white". Needless to say he has been scarred by the event ever since.