Hello.

Is there anybody in there?

There is something you should know about. I have figured out the key to time travel—well of sorts. It’s really easy. Just close your eyes, or keep them open for that matter, but just listen, and you’ll be whisked away to years gone by…say 1979. This grand invention is called music, really well done music. Apparently it’s been around for a while I hear, but this kind of music, courtesy of the Canadian troupe Classic Albums Live, has super powers.

Classic Albums Live is not a tribute band. They are not a cover band. They are an experience. Taking our favorite classic rock albums, they re-create them live on stage complete with every drum beat and guitar riff perfectly placed like a carbon copy of the original. There are no cheesy costumes or over flamboyant singers and absolutely no creative freedom with the songs. CAL performances are the real thing—with different faces. With precision like this, one could close their eyes and really feel like they are hearing the actual performers singing and playing their own music. It’s almost creepy.

Personally, it takes me back to the very first years of my life that I can actually remember with any detail. It was “Reading Rainbow” and that guy who drew while he narrated stories in the mornings if I was home sick, “The Muppet Show” in its final leg on the weeknights, and the weekends were always filled with open windows, a full house and music. Lots of music.

My dad still has the old school record player that taught me my very first lessons in music appreciation. Fleetwood Mac. The Who. The Eagles. Zeppelin. The Beatles. The Stones. The records sat right next to our Disney tapes on the entertainment center—a peculiar blend of sex, drugs and rock and roll embodied in the music with the sugar and spice and everything nice embodied in the videos. It was a crossing over of generations. I learned at a young age what great music was, which allowed me to be the conscious steward of great music today.

So fast forward to November 7, 2007, with CAL performing Pink Floyd’s The Wall in its glorious entirety in front of my smiling face. My memory may not be the trippy 1979 experience of the earliest Floyd fans, but it’s of growing up with an awareness not many others my age had of how incredible the music of decades before me were and still are—yeah and it’s still pretty trippy. That’s an endurance that warrants tribute bands, cover bands and bands like CAL that let you truly experience it all over again. It is…wait for it…a beautiful thing.

It was an extraordinary show. Standing ovations punctuated most of the bigger numbers, and as unfortunately small as the crowd was, the energy running through that theatre more than made up for it. So here comes the shameless plug. CAL will be bringing two more classic albums to life on our stage in the upcoming months: Led Zeppelin IV on February 2, 2008 and The Beatles Sgt. Pepper on March 16, 2008. If you even faintly recognize those bands…and if you don’t then seriously where have you been…you must come be a part of the CAL experience.

In the meantime, throw on some classic tunes on the iPod while you’re out and about. But stay warm. It’s getting pretty chilly out there Jacksonville. Don’t let your fingers go comfortably numb. Sorry, I had to do it…