Tag: ABBA

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1970s Blogging Driving Geography Home Music Radio Travel

South Florida State College

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. The main campus of South Florida State College (#SFSC) is located just a couple of miles away from my new neighborhood. It looks like a very nice campus from the exterior side. They even have an art museum on-campus (which I visited). I will be supporting the college. No – I’m not going back to school at age 56. I will be attending concerts at their 1,460-seat Performing Arts Center.

I usually attend about 5 concerts / live events per year, and I’ll probably stay at that same level into my retirement years. It’s good to have a place to see shows and concerts about 5 minutes away from my front door.

I actually saw 2 concerts on 2 nights when I was up there during Presidents’ Day Weekend to buy my new home. I saw MANIA: The ABBA Tribute and Evil Woman: The American ELO. Both tribute bands were awesome, and they put on great shows. I never saw the original bands in concert, so this was the next best thing. ABBA and ELO are two of my favorite bands from the mid-to-late-1970s. I was 6 rows from the stage for the ABBA show, and 4 rows from the stage for the ELO show. In fact – I’m in the photo below, and I’m in a prominent location. See the guy in the center with the microphone ? He’s the Musical Director – Nigel Holland. My head is right above his head. (My mouth is open.)

After the first show there – I got stuck in an unusually long traffic jam, as hundreds of cars tried to squeeze out of a single exit of the parking lot. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing at such a small venue. I did my research prior to the second show, and I parked in a parking lot on the rear side of the venue. I was the only car in the parking lot when I arrived, but after the show my car was surrounded by dozens (not hundreds) of other cars. It took less than a minute to exit that parking lot. So – I now know the secret of parking at shows at #SFSC.

Next #TravelThursday I’ll write about another Performing Arts Center that’s located about 100 miles away from my new home, and I’m there tonight ! Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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History Home Life Music People Radio

The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

Flashback to the Spring of 1977. I’m 9-years-old – getting ready to turn 10-years-old, and I’m hangin’ out with my friends down by the creek at the bottom end of Red Wing Lane in Lanham Maryland. One side of the creek I ruled. I was in charge. The territory was known as ‘Chris Day Valley’, and it stretched for as far as my imagination would allow. On the other side of the creek my friends ruled, and their territory was known as ‘Wolf Pack State’. Our two territories neighboured each other, and we were friendly nations. See – even back then I was mastering geographic boundaries !

As I was compiling the paragraph above (and wandering around on the web) I believe that I may have discovered two friends of mine (simultaneously) from that neighbourhood and that time period. I’m gonna try to connect with both of them. I see their pictures (avatars) online, and they look very much as I remember them from over 30 years ago. One of them lived in the last house on the street right before the creek and the two ‘territories’. The other lived in a house just behind mine, and he was one of my first good buddy friends.

Playing on the radio back in the old neighbourhood up and down Red Wing Lane was a lot of Disco music. ABBA (from Sweden) weren’t really a Disco act, but they got with the times when they had to. The result was their only # 1 smash stateside and perhaps their most memorable anthem of the era. It’s “Dancing Queen” !  RE-LIVE !

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Blogging Driving Food Health History Holidays Music People Travel

Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– Let’s get spontaneous.
– Let’s get ridiculous.
– This morning at 7:30 AM I already had The Big Cheese on my mind.
– I convinced 5 other coworker dudes to eat Lunch there 4 hours later.
– And so we came, we saw, and we conquered !
– We ordered 2 extra large (16-inch) pizzas for the 6 of us.
– One had pepperoni on it, and the other was full of sausages.
– One dude ate more pizza than all of the others.
– Guilty !
– There were 20 slices in all, and the other 5 dudes ate 3 slices apiece.
– That left 5 slices for moi.
– That was some tasty pizza there !
– I’m lookin’ forward to this upcoming holiday weekend.
– It all starts for me at 11 AM tomorrow (Friday) morning.
– But it starts off with a dental cleaning appointment.
– On Saturday and Sunday I’ll be on the road visiting places.
– It’s sort of like a dry run for a much longer road trip I’m taking in November.
– This blog will go dark for those two days.
– I mean you’ll still be able to access it, but there will be nothing new posted on it.
– Actually I’ll be tweeting, so you’ll be able to see those here on the blog.
– My antiquated cell phone is born again due to its ability to tweet.
– On Monday I’ll blog all about my road trip.
– But before then tomorrow night is Disco night here on the bell-bottom blog.
– I’ve got ABBA with their biggest worldwide smash ever !
– You can dance – You can jive – Having the time of your Life.
– You won’t regret it pal.
– Since there is no ‘Saturday Night Retro’ this weekend I’ve got a treat for you.
– I’ve got Mr. David Hasselhoff with a big hit that he had back in 1997.
– It’s a spirited remake of a very well-known early-1970s pop smash.
– Check out the low-budget production values of this music video: