Is It Possible to Flush a Hollywood Bowl?

It was an ignoble start of my Hollywood Bowl season last Saturday night. Actually, it was the worst evening I ever spent there. Oh, the venue was, as usual, perfect. The pre-concert picnic snacks were yummy. There was a light lilting breeze.

And then the show started.

Okay, I should have known better when I originally bought my passel of Bowl tickets for the summer. This one was entitled "Abba: The Music." Specifically, the music. Not the group itself. There was no deception intended. And, what we got was Abba: The Music. And barely that.

From the outset, it looked like the assembled crowd didn't care. I missed the embedded e-mail about wearing my pink cowboy hat with its flashing lights. Most did not. The Bowl was awash with this ridiculous noggin accessory. Women, children, men. Everybody looked like Dale Evans at Studio 54. And most of the folks had been fairly well pickled before they even had their tickets wanded at the gate. They were here to party, regardless of whether the music was even remotely connected to the original artists. Abba-mania was in full throttle. Or Abba Light. Abba Adjacent. You pick the adjective. It just wasn't really Abba.

But the evening's ruse even had an opening act. Super Diamond, described as Neil Diamond's back-up group. Or garage band. I couldn't really tell, except that the lead guy thought he was Neil himself. When he began to croak in his best raspy voice "Love On the Rocks," dogs started to howl as far as Loma Linda. It was like an "American Idol" audition that the producers didn't get clearance to air.

Again, people didn't care. Wine purchased at the 99 Cent Store tends to do that to you.

Super Diamond's time on stage was about 45 minutes or 45 days. I couldn't tell the difference. They did the number from the "Jazz Singer" movie, "They're Coming to America," and I realize that, in the 29 years since that song came out, it is no longer considered a positive that people are indeed coming to America.

Naturally, the closing number was the official sing-along of Major League Baseball, "Sweet Caroline," and the crowd went into frenzy just as I was looking for a way to experience temporary deafness. Luckily, I had brought along the retro transistor radio the Dodgers had given away in a promotion two months ago. The radio that gets only one station---KABC which carries the Dodgers game. I popped the ear buds in and hoped to sweet Hell that Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday could drown out my misery.

After intermission, the headline act (and I use that term in the loosest nomenclature possible) came on stage and my mental tumor became inoperable. The lead guy of "Abba The Music" reveled in the crowd's welcome and that they "were happy to be back at the Bowl." Oh, my God, I thought. This was a return booking? Wasn't that talent coordinator fired the first time???

The music sounded like Abba, but then again, I can sound a little like Mel Allen if I exclaim "How about that!" Inexplicably, they played some Abba songs that nobody recognized. If you're going to go through the trouble of doing bad cover versions of songs, make sure your drunken audience knows them. All those mystery tunes managed to do was give some of the sots around me an opportunity to take a breathe and another swig from their dime store chardonnay.

Not that there wasn't any connection to the original Abba group. They brought out some old guy who played the flute and saxophone for them in 1977. He actually was the best part of the evening, but just might have dropped dead backstage after the show. Some other coot came out as one of their original guitarists. He showed off his vintage 1956 Les Paul guitar, which actually prompted my biggest laugh of the evening. Two Dumb Doras sitting behind me were admiring the guitar. And you can't write this kind of comic exchange if you tried.

"Wow, a Les Paul. I think he just died," said the first dope.

"No, I think you got him mixed up with Ed McMahon."

I couldn't stop laughing for ten minutes, which got my mind off the tazering that my ears were being subjected to. I wondered, in what universe, Ed McMahon was a renowed guitarist. And I began to think whether, if Obama is really worried about torture, we were going to be released like those terrorists at Gitmo.

Naturally, the closing number was a tribute by Fake Abba to Michael Jackson and I fear this will be a common practice all summer at the Hollywood Bowl.

"Here is Beethoven's piano concerto #2 and it was playing in the O.R. the day when Michael was having his skin graft after catching on fire in 1985."

Mercilessly, the referee finally called it a TKO and we were off to the parking lot. To make matters worse, they changed the traffic patterns around the Bowl exits and the resulting automotive melee made last week's Iran elections look like a canasta game at the Rosenblatts. The Bowl has been in place successfully since the 1930s. You want to change the parking lot access now??

It shouldn't be this hard. A pleasant summer's evening of great music at the best venue in the world. It can only get better in future weeks. Right?

I'm bringing along the Dodger transistor radio just in case.

Dinner last night: Evelyn's Favorite Pasta at the Cheesecake Factory.