Superstar Time-travel

Thursday, Michele and I saw a dress-rehearsal performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Lyric Opera.  I would’ve preferred watching my daughter bat third, but that ship has sailed.  Still, there was a bit of time-travel involved.

I was a college freshman when songs from the album flooded AM radio; decades later, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and “Superstar” made it onto a CD Clare had to listen to on the way to nationals in Kansas City the summer between sophomore and junior year of high school.  It wasn’t the first time she thought her dad was nuts, just confirmation of the same.

Sitting there at the Lyric, I’d totally forgotten about “What’s the Buzz” and “Everything’s Alright,” both of which nearly gave me goosebumps.  The whole performance brought me back to the spring of 1971, when I mixed Andrew Lloyd Webber with Chuck Tanner, a rock musical with Chicago White Sox baseball.  I wonder if Wilbur Wood or Tommy John ever hummed “What’s the buzz? /Tell me what’s a-happenin’” during a start.  Or maybe Jay Johnstone charged a ball from center field knowing that, in the end, everything would be alright in 1971 or 2008 or ten years after that.