measuring time alongside The Roots
- abegreenwald
- Jan 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 1
I've been going to Roots concerts for 30 years, a fact that should make me feel old but actually brings me solace. There's something both comforting and inspiring to me about the greatest drummer/documentary director of all time continuing to lead a band for three decades. I've probably seen them at least 30 times over the years and can mark different periods of my life by Roots shows. They are my Grateful Dead. By the way, I recommend this soundtrack to accompany this post for a multimedia experience.
My first Roots concert was at their home stage, the TLA on South Street, right around the time when Do You Want More came out in 1995. I think I went with my friend Anthony Veneziale AKA Two-Touch? I'm not sure, it was a little while ago.
TLA (Theater of the Living Arts) also happens to be the site where my parents received their first Covid vaccines, so it has an extra special place in my heart:
Other locations where I've seen The Roots over the years include, but are not limited to:
The Bataclan, Paris
MoCon Hall at Wesleyan (click through for a very Wesleyan headline)
Mt. Holyoke College
Bowery Ballroom, NYC
Irving Plaza, NYC
The Wiltern, LA
The triggedy-troc-troc-troc Trocadero, Philly
The Greek Theater, LA
Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival
The Hollywood Bowl
Several of those venues are no longer with us, several founding members of The Roots are no longer with us, but the band continues on.
There was also the summer of 1997 when I was staying in Richmond, Virginia while working on a TNT movie called The Day Lincoln Was Shot.
So anyway, I was living at a hotel/motel/holiday inn in Richmond, VA for a few weeks and one morning I came down to the lobby and was so excited to see the whole band checking into the same hotel. They were in town to play the Smoking Grooves festival and I'm sure I was devastated to have to miss it for work. I ran to get my CD sleeve (remember this was 1997) and Questlove graciously signed it and I think we chatted for a minute or two. I was in my early twenties and was beyond starstruck. I still have that signed CD sleeve which I maintain is a better memento than a selfie. Physical media is better! Dont at me.
For true Roots nerds, there's nothing better for learning about the history of the band than Season 4 of the "What Had Happened Was" podcast. Questlove shares so many great stories about the early years of the group, which were essentially pre-internet so fans really didn't know about the behind the scenes minutiae. It also put me right back into that time period.
But now as I approach my 50th birthday and the feelings that come along with it, I think about Questlove turning 50 in 2021.
Someone who I still associate with my youth is now fully in his 50's and fully someone who I fully look up to on so many levels. As a writer, as a musician obvi, as a DJ, as a Philadelphia cultural ambassador, and of course as an Oscar-winning documentary director. He makes the idea of turning 50 seem like something to look forward to rather than dread. As does my friend, and hip-hop concert buddy Randall Park who had a great fifitieth birthday party last year and got to rap with The Roots on The Tonight Show earlier this year. What a thrill:
I was ruminating on the passage of time last night, as one tends to do on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately Lynn was feeling sick and couldn't go with me to the concert, so I started out the evening feeling a little sorry for myself that I was the only one at Disney Hall celebrating the new year alone. Feeling a little sorry for myself, like The Roots, is something that's been with me for most of my adult life.
But then the band started playing and I wasn't thinking about myself, or about years passing by, or about anything at all. I was clapping my hands, stomping my feet, and up dancing alongside the stranger next to me. The Roots did that. And they keep on doing that. And they make me feel grateful to be alive, and still moving to the beat.
We shall, proceed ❤️
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