SOLO FOR SENIORS - ROCKIN MOMS NURSING HOME (Here is a portion of the drum solo I played to end my most important show) Recently, I performed my most important show. It was at the nursing home where my mother resides. You see, just before I left to play a 6-week, 20-city Concert Tour of the United Kingdom a year and a half ago, my family and I had to place Mom into a nursing home. It broke our hearts, as she had worked in a nursing home, taking care of patients for several decades. Then, soon after her retirement, she learned that she has Parkinsons Disease & Diabetes, which eventually took a toll on Mom, forcing one of the most life-living souls I know to be confined to a life in a nursing home herself... From the first week she was there, she kept asking the activities director if her son (I) could come in and play a concert... She was persistent, and eventually a date was worked out for me to come into the nursing home to play... Then Mom kept asking if I could bring my drums in to play at the show. I insisted that it would be too much for me to lug all the drums... would be too loud, etc... I promised her a good show with an acoustic guitar and singing... Still, she persisted every time I would visit, saying So, if you dont bring your drum set, you could always bring bongos, right?... No, Mom... Just my guitar... Well, what about this white buckets that I saw you playing in a video online when you jammed with those street drummers in L.A. and Vegas...? Mom... Please... Im just bringing my guitar... Then I saw a look of sadness and disappointment on her face, which made me reconsider... My mind raced back to the very first drum that I received from her and my Dad at age 3 under the Christmas tree... Then to the first concert I played as a drummer in my 5th-Grade band, when she was the first one to stand up in the audience to give me a proud thumbs-up... Then to the parties that were thrown at my house when shed call me to the basement to play my drums for the guests, which she already had assembled around my drums... Then to the rides shed give me daily to rehearsals and shows at nightclubs (age 14) once I put a band together... Then to the time she stood in the midst of a few thousand people in a 95-degree standing-room-only concert that I played as the opening act for Journey when she was in her 60s... and to EVERY day of my youth when I practiced those drums for hours on end to records by The Beatles, The Beach Boys & KISS, while she put up with it (and raising us FIVE kids!!)... Not only did she endure my relentless pounding of the drums, but she always encouraged me and proudly told everyone about me... right up until this current day in the nursing home... I thought of how selfish it would be of me to NOT bring my drums in to perform on... How that might make Mom feel a bit of the good old days when she was free to attend my shows or hear the sound of some 1970s tribal beat radiating through the kitchen floor from my drum-set in the basement... I thought of how her nurturing of my talents and her allowance of me to be free enough to go after my dreams has led to my meeting & earning the respect of Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr... to me recording a song with KISS guitarist, Ace Frehley... and how Ill be opening for the Beach Boys in concert this summer... ALL of the heroes that I played drums to from a record player in Moms basement... And most of all, I realized that she has spent every day within those nursing home walls since I left for a tour that took me through 6 countries and 40 cities... and my coming in to play a concert at that nursing home would be as big as any Elvis Presley, Rolling Stones, or Bruce Springsteen show to ALL of those elderly residents who would be in attendance. Well, I decided to haul a full drum-set into that nursing home today, and after performing half the show on acoustic guitar, I switched to the drum set, and played along to Elvis, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and did a full drum-solo that nobody in the room would ever forget... and Mom was right (as always)... all of the 75 or so elderly guests came up to me and said how that was The best show ever!... Wow... The best show ever... Well, it certainly became that for me when I looked over and saw my mothers face beaming, and patients getting out of their wheel-chairs to move to the drums... Yet another lesson Ive learned... I love you Mom.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:34:13 +0000
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