A Night with the Music Nut

May 2, 2024 was the day that John the Music Nut and myself finally met in person.

We first came to know each other through the Contrarians and various panel discussions.

I believe that we probably started to have a bit more of a bond when we were involved in a series on U2’s discography on Ryan’s Vinyl Destination YouTube channel.

That planted a seed in my own mind about wanting to do a similar series on the band W.A.S.P. I emailed a few folks about doing a panel discussion on their catalogue and I tortured a few folks about doing it but I was thinking about how to approach it.

John The Music Nut was the one who had the most knowledge of the band and after having seen the same tour that I did, it seemed like a good choice to just do the series with just one person instead of a group of people.

I don’t need to rehash how special the series turned out but it really was a special time. We would be on Zoom for anywhere from 2-3 hours and we would get a 45 minute show from it but we spent so much time just talking and building a friendship.

Here it is, over a year later and every Sunday we record an episode that then comes out on Wednesday. But the hours tallied of just building the friendship, tossing ideas around for the next shows, and now with the Judas Priest series and bringing various other people in, allowed us to build friendships with others.

John and I are both Pennsylvanians. He living closer to the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area and me being a Lehigh Valley native until I was 16. I might live in Alabama now but my home will always be the Lehigh Valley. I have family and longtime friends here that I wish I could see more often.

So when John mentioned about NWOBHM legends Saxon and British Rock legends Uriah Heep were coming to Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe PA, the wheels in my mind got moving and I knew I had to go to this show. I worked it out with work, got the ticket, purchased the plane ticket and the countdown could begin.

May 2 finally arrives. It’s not a bad drive from my Mom’s house to Jim Thorpe so I got on my way a little after 4 just in case I ran into bad traffic along the way.

I got up to Penn’s Peak about 5:30 and decided to take this in:

It was a nice day, upper 70’s with low humidity and a nice breeze. Taking this in was breathtaking.

About 6 was when John showed up and it was like old friends that hadn’t seen each other in a long time. For the occasion, I wore my 1985 Motley Crue shirt from when I saw them in concert. Why that one? John was there too as it was his first concert. Now I have put some weight on and honestly the shirt really doesn’t flatter me but it has a good story.

Also showing up was another guy that I have appeared on a few videos with, a fellow named Nick S Squire. He was another one that I had hoped to meet one day as he too is a PA guy.

So the three of us go up to the restaurant at Penn’s Peak. We get a beer, toast the night, and away we go.

Last thing I will leave you with in this post is the link to a video I posted before the show started.

https://youtu.be/ekyIB4eCkrQ?si=vY3NSXYWJrjl1VdB

I will post a review of the show later.

For now, here’s to more occasions where John and I, and Nick too, can hang out and rock out. But also, here’s to continuing to build on the friendship.

🍻🍻