For those about to rock …

This text turned up on our son’s Facebook page last Saturday night:

“in the front row at the survivor concert with ben and troy!”

Evan rocked his first festival last weekend.

Evan is 15. He rode his bike down to the Memorial Day weekend festival to hang with whoever was going to show. Somehow, he made $15 last on a hot, sunny day when he went coast to coast, arriving shortly after the park opened and leaving when it closed at 11 p.m.

There’s music all day long at the festival, along with food tents, a midway, and of course, hanging out. That — and a fair number of girls — was plenty to keep three high school freshmen boys occupied.

Apparently, the fellas worked their way through the crowd and parked themselves in the front row for the last two bands of the night. Pretty exciting, but just the beginning.

They were showered with guitar picks. That was cool. They were surrounded by “crazy old people,” including one guy who stuck an extra beer or two in the pockets of his shorts. That was not quite as cool.

The fellas rocked it through a set by Johnny Wad, a popular cover band in our corner of Wisconsin. That was followed, of course, by the headline act — Survivor, albeit a Survivor fronted neither by Jim Peterik nor Jimi Jameson.

So, Evan was asked, how were the bands?

“Johnny Wad was way better.
At least we knew some of the songs they were playing.”

Ouch. No respect for Survivor, even if Evan knows “Eye of the Tiger.”

That said, “Eye of the Tiger” came out 13 years before Evan was born.

Johnny Wad has more than 80 songs on its cover list. Here’s one.

“Down Under,” Colin Hay, from “Man @ Work,” 2003. It’s a laid-back acoustic cover of the Men at Work smash that also came out 13 years before Evan was born.

That said, this has long been one of Evan’s favorite records. Chock full of Men at Work covers and wonderful originals, it’s one of mine, too.

Evan is going to another festival later this summer.

The story of that adventure to come.