I am So grateful I have had the chance to travel time.
I go back to a stunning moment.
I had been invited to be the first non-classical performer to play the Metropolitan Opera House.
I had done two concerts at Carnegie Hall.
I am Melanie from Queens.
It is true by now I have performed all around the world, but THIS is THE MET!
Some of the honor of this momentous achievement might have been lost on the young Melanie. Construction for the new home of The Met had been completed in 1966. It was fairly new from an historical perspective.
It was elegant, pristine, perhaps a little too... corporate for my taste at the time.
After doing so many iconic festivals, I washed the mud off my feet and stepped onto that stage.
It was a time when I ridged against the basic black dress and pearls and coiffed hair, which seemed to fall into the realms of pretentious grown-up in that unacceptable way. Strict lines, and limitations, when I was all about real and the organic flow.
Never before had The Met been host to “the poor little hairy kids.”
Like a slow tide coming in then rising onto my stage people from the audience sat until it reached the high watermark.
That night The Met transformed into a very Close To It All, candles for peace, and Beautiful People night. East meets West. Accept and be part of it all and all. The production people had never experienced anything like it. Up until that night they had only dealt with audiences who knew how to behave as an audience.
I remember the calm. I was left to my own devices to handle the irreverence never before seen in a hall so grand. I somehow restored peace between the “grown-ups “and “kids” and made it all alright.
No one left the stage. No one left their seats. Microphones were being shifted around by the kids on stage. You might even hear that and their whispering on this recording. But without so much as a whimper the concert went on in 1974.
As I exited, I went through some of the crowd who donned their three-piece suits, and the basic black dress and pearls. I had just a little bit ago been a human campfire yet as I left I felt conspicuously under-dressed for this occasion.
I time travel back to now.
“I did the MET. The first effing pop artist to play the effing Met!!!!”
The honor of it, the import of it!
I am so grateful I have traveled this road of time on and on and long enough to finally be impressed.
Love Melanie
TRACK LIST
"Darkness dressed in black" (dialogue)
Babe Rainbow
Uptown and Down
Holding Out
"I'm 27 today" (dialogue)
The Nickel Song
Any Guy
Love to Lose Again
Together Alone
What Have They Done to My Song?
"I’ll play something you can move to" (dialogue)
Kansas
"Sign of the times" (dialogue)
Close To It All
Do You Believe?
Steppin’
Psychotherapy
Center of the Circle
Beautiful People
Ring the Living Bell
"Encore" (dialogue)
Peace Will Come
Wondrous Love