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I got a jump start on the 4th of July because I really wanted to see Big Brother and the Holding Company on Fremont Street Experience, downtown, Las Vegas. You never know what you’re going to get with these old groups, and this is one that I didn’t want to miss. They played for free on Fremont Street and I was there.

I was just in time for the first light show of the night. After the regular show they placed the new Fourth of July light show. It was way cool. It is also quite long. I skipped the first part of the Hendrix type style of the national anthem, which was a little hard on the ears, but I got the rest of it on video for you.

Big Brother and the Holding Company has three of the original members in it. I guess they had four until just recently. It has been forty years or so, haha, so the old timers were fairly easy to spot. These three guys were in the band when Janis Joplin was in it. They’ve added a new guitarist and a female lead singer.

Big Brother did a few of the better known old tunes and the lead singer really cranked it out. She was just wailing the blues up there in a Janis Joplin style, but never pretending to be Janis. I much appreciated that. The band also played some other stuff too. They even did some reggae.

The night was another hot one and the humidity was over 26%. Between that and the thickest crowd ever, I was fearing I would melt. Sweat was trickling down my back and sides of my face while I stood there and rocked out with everyone else.

There was a very large VIP area in front of the stage to start, but then they started slowly moving the gate up towards the stage to give us more room. After the first set was over a guy came out and was handing out VIP passes to people standing in front of me, just to spread the joy. I rather liked being on the not-so-important-people side so I didn’t grab one. I much appreciated that the people who were standing in front of me were now no longer in front of me. That was joy enough for me!

I saw an awful lot of very long and very grey locks in the crowd. It sort of made me feel like a bit of a sell out, having my hair dyed, highlighted and styled all the time. But, like the vast majority of people my age, I quickly got over that.

One old hippy I was standing next to was expressing his disappointment that the guys on stage had seen better days. “I’ve never seen such sloppy guitar playing,” he said and shook his head. I suggested that possibly he was not exactly paying attention that closely back then? He ignored that and went on, “The years have really taken their toll, I guess.”

I was never a fan of Big Brother and the Holding Company for a couple of reasons. First off, they were a little bit before my time. I heard about Janis Joplin via a monthly TV show called “First Tuesday”. It was sort of like 60 Minutes. Well, they were showing Janis being carted away on a stretcher, and she was under a sheet. I was like twelve or something at the time. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as FM radio yet, but I started asking questions and discovered a whole bunch of things in the coming couple of years that I never knew about.

Once I finally sunk my teeth in some great Janis Joplin albums, I found that Pearl wasn’t the only album. There was the Big Brother stuff. I didn’t like that so much. I still don’t really. It isn’t my type of music for the most part. And so here I was, listening to some of these guys live.

I admired the old hippy for being fussy about his music. I found a partner in crime. It is usually me that gets expectations up pretty high. This time, I found them just great. Well, I think they certainly did need the new additions to the group in order to pull it all off, but they were really pulling it off quite well. The crowd was cheering and rocking out and having a great time! As I was.

I thought I smelled a skunk. Seriously, I thought I smelled skunk spray while pressed against everyone in that massive crowd. While I was wondering how in the Hell a skunk could have gotten to Vegas, much less downtown, it occurred to me there was something even more familiar about the scent. Someone had some great skunk bud they had fired up. Oh! DOH. You know you’re getting old, when…

Every so often, I’d catch a whiff, and none of it was ever as good as that first one. I would expect more of that then there was that particular night. In a way, it sort of added to the whole walk down memory lane. A good rock concert, chick singing her guts out on stage, lots of pretty colors and getting high, ah, the good old days. I did start feeling a slight buzz at one point. Guess I was a little too close to someone for a bit.

Eventually, I had enough of Peace, Love and Dope, and thought it was best if I got home at a decent hour. I ducked out of the crowd and headed back to the car.

The crowd was still massive and went from end to end of Fremont Street. The big crowds were not just pressed up against the stages, the crowd was thick through the whole place.

Back down by the plaza I ran into a young guy who could not have even hit twenty-five yet. He was loaded and raised his hand to give me a High Five. He was yelling, “FOR THE SUMMER OF ’69!!” Then he hugged me and went off to find more people to high five and hug. Ooookay. Alrighty then. I was happy to help him celebrate the summer which was approximately twenty years before he was in the womb, and about five years before I even knew there was something besides the Archies and Motown on the radio. But, hey, it’s the summer of love, as least it is in Vegas.

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