Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes…Song #68/250: And We Danced by The Hooters

In 1985, the famous Live Aid charity concerts took place on the same day, oceans apart, at Wembley Stadium in London, England and then later at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Many of the music world’s biggest acts agreed to perform for free as part of a united effort to raise money for famine relief in Africa and to draw attention to the economic and social inequities that so characterized many parts of the planet. At Wembley Stadium, acts such as David Bowie, Queen, Paul McCartney and Elton John all played before thousands of fans in attendance and millions watching along on TV. In Philadelphia, local concert organizers felt that it was important to lead off with a Philly-based band. As so happened, Philadelphia’s own The Hooters had just signed their first record contract and were riding a wave of positive press due to the release of their debut single “And We Danced”. So they were tapped to open the Philadelphia portion of the Live Aid concert spectacle. This decision prompted the famous retort from Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof who, upon hearing that the North American leg of the concert he had worked so hard to organize was being opened by The Hooters, sneered and said, “Who the f*ck are The Hooters?” And so begins our post.

There is a famous saying from the world of politics that states that all politics are local. The saying is meant to imply that if politicians pay attention to issues at a local level then, the bigger national picture will take care of itself. The idea of local issues and people being important isn’t so much en vogue today as it was forty years ago or so. Local newspapers and TV news broadcasts are disappearing, only to be replaced by centralized content from regional centers. It isn’t always easy to know what is going on in your own home town anymore. But just the same, newlyweds are still getting married. Babies are being born. Funerals are being held for people who were once loved. There are dances at the local Legion hall. Sports teams are collecting pop can tabs or beer bottles to raise money for a trip or for equipment. Somebody, somewhere in town has some odds and sods that they wish to sell for a good price. Life in small towns continues unabated, even though those lives are rarely deemed worthy of warranting coverage by the centralized powers that be.

A couple of years ago when my daughter and I cleared out my mother’s apartment when she moved into the nursing home where she presently resides, we came across several big scrapbooks in a cupboard. These scrapbooks were filled with newspaper clippings of events from the lives of people my mother knew and loved. It is amazing to think that it wasn’t too long ago that local newspapers carried announcements of new babies being born or couples celebrating milestone anniversaries or couples announcing their engagement. My mother had carefully cut out every article about a new birth, an obituary, a high school graduate and their proud family members and so on and had saved them all. The act of doing this predated social media. It was her way of feeling as though she was a part of a larger community. She truly cared about the people in those newspaper clippings. She was proud to live in the same circle of local communities that they did. It provided her with a sense of connection to something larger than herself. To my way of thinking, that is the difference between how my mother kept her finger on the pulse of what was going on around her and how we connect via social media today. Back then, people knew about every charity raffle, every church bake sale, every meeting of concern about a local issue and, just as importantly, they knew the people involved. Today, I am certainly connected to the lives of my friends. I know what they had for supper or where they went on vacation but, as handy as that all is to know, it doesn’t give me a greater insight into the town in which I live. I don’t get local announcements unless I am able to subscribe to receive newsletters and email blasts. I assume people are still getting married and that babies are still being born in my hometown but I have no proof of that anymore. I feel that we live in more compartmentalized times. Whether or not this is deliberate social engineering or just a new way of living, I can’t be sure. All that I do know is that there was a time not too long ago when the word “community” was more than just a trendy buzzword but was actually a sought-after way of life that we could see reflected in the world around us. This was true of the way local media worked but it was also reflected in the family style comedies and drama we watched on TV. It was also true of much of the music that played on the radio. That is where the story of The Hooters begins.

The Hooters are a rock n’ roll band from Philadelphia. Like most towns and cities, Philadelphia has an authentic local music scene that is supported by a network of venues, promoters, record store retailers and radio stations that all work in concert to promote the work of local bands. Certain acts such as Hall and Oates and Teddy Pendergrass, for example, all started out performing in small clubs in Philadelphia. With the support and encouragement they received from local audiences and promoters, these acts became known on a national level. Even though Philadelphia is a large city, there was always a sense of civic pride when one of their own made it big on the national music scene. Because the local music scene was so well supported, many young people grew up with the belief that making music was not only a worthwhile creative endeavour but that it could also be a way of earning a living, too. Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian were two such local Philly boys. They met while attending the University of Pennsylvania and quickly became friends based on their shared love of music. They called themselves The Hooters because of their use of a musical keyboard that you blow into called a melodica. This instrument makes a higher-pitched hooting sound and since they became known for playing it in concert, they started being called The Hooters by their local fans. The name stuck and away the band went. Hyman and Bazilian started writing songs and performing in local bars and soon earned a reputation for themselves as a solid rock n’ roll band. The boys gave all they had at every show. Audiences who heard them always left feeling as though they had gotten their money’s worth. Soon The Hooters had firmly entrenched themselves in the local Philadelphia music scene. 

The Hooters came along in the early 1980s at a time when a style of rock music known as “Heartland Rock” was gaining popularity. Heartland rock was a form of guitar-driven rock that focussed on the lives of ordinary people living their lives in small working class towns. Songs such as “Centerfield” by John Fogarty, “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp, “Summer of 69” by Bryan Adams, “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen and many more like them all spoke of the simple pleasures that came from having beers with your buds, dancing with your best girl and the pride that came from working hard and a job well done. It was music that held a mirror up to the world in which many fans lived in. It was into that atmosphere that The Hooters began writing the songs that would form the track list of their debut album Nervous Night. One of the songs that caught the attention of audiences and radio stations was a song called “And We Danced”. The song begins with an instrumental segment featuring the band’s signature melodica (which, to me, is not unlike Neil Young’s harmonica intro on “Heart of Gold”). It then launches into a story of guys and girls dancing at a local nightspot to the music of their favourite band. It is really as simple as that. “And We Danced” is a song that celebrates the simple pleasure of going out for a night on the town, enjoying a dance or two with someone special and hearing some great music along the way. The video for this song was filmed at a local drive-in theatre. The setting for this was a deliberate choice. There are many ways to watch a movie these days that don’t involve having to leave the comfort of your own couch. But, by seeing a movie at a drive-in theatre, you are making the deliberate choice to do something social with other people. It is this conscious choice to be social and to engage in a bit of community building with people you may already know or could soon come to know that the song is really speaking about. Lots of things go on at a drive-in theatre. Some happen in the front seat, some in the back seat and some happen outside of the car altogether. But one thing is for sure, just as going to a bar to hear a live band is a social choice, so is watching a movie in public at a drive-in theatre. ***As a bit of drive-in theatre trivia for you, as of the writing of this post, there are only 40 drive-in theatres in all of Canada! We are allowing ourselves to become compartmentalized on purpose as we sit on our couches and stream our content to our devices. We are in the process of forgetting what it means to be active members of a community. We are forgetting to plug ourselves into the world in which we actually live in favour of the artificial world depicted on our screens.

Luckily for The Hooters, people still looked to live music venues for their entertainment back in the 1980s. They played often in the Philadelphia area and quickly became local favourites. When Nervous Night came out, local fans supported the band by buying the album. Local radio stations supported the band by promoting the single “And We Danced”.  A local music promoter named Larry Magid, who ran a company that supported Philadelphia area acts called Electric Factory Concerts Inc., lobbied a man named Bill Graham, who was promoting and organizing the Live Aid concert in North America for Bob Geldof, in an attempt to get some local Philly representation on the bill. In time, Graham relented and asked Magid for some options. Magid suggested the up and coming band The Hooters. Because of the local music network of support that all Philadelphia-based bands enjoyed, The Hooters came to be the band that opened the North American leg of Live Aid. The first song they played was “And We Danced”. The local Philadelphia crowd went wild. I am not certain if Bob Geldof heard the roar of the crowd or was even watching as the melodica began to play but The Hooters got to enjoy a moment in the brightest of spotlights. Opening for Live Aid may have arguably been the high point of a career that continues to this very day. The Hooters never became an A-list band on the North American or world scene but they will still put on a great show for you in your hometown should you be lucky enough to have them come through. In Philly, they play to standing room only crowds everywhere they go. Philadelphia fans are notorious for being hard nosed and quick to turn on their heroes. But there remains a lot of love there for The Hooters. The Philly fans are good to continue supporting a local band that made good when it mattered most. In reply, The Hooters still give the best show they can every time out. “And We Danced” is always a popular tune whenever it is played.

I don’t know if this is going to sound weird or not but I have always envisioned life as being like owning a patchwork quilt. The patches on life’s quilt are the people that we know and love and live among. The warmth that flows over and around us in our lives comes from those very people represented as a patch on our quilt. For my mother, her patches took the form of newspaper clippings. She felt a connection to every single person, family and organization represented in those clippings. Those clippings were more than simple pieces of paper. They were evidence of a life spent in community with others. Each life had meaning. Each life was special. Each life had value. When we recognize that value in those we live among, that is how we breathe new life into the concept of what it means to be a part of a real community. Being connected to and caring about others is the first line of defense when it comes to fending off the coming dangers of fascism and authoritarianism. Being trained to be insular and inward looking is what allows atrocities such as the Holocaust to happen. We are being trained to be insular and inward looking as you read these words. Please finish this post and then go and say hello to your neighbours. Walk downtown and find out what is going on there. Support local. Support local. Support local. These people are, quite literally, the ones you will be living and dying with. It stands to reason that they are worth getting to know and supporting.  As you watch the videos for “And We Danced”, do so from the perspective of the Philly fans in attendance at Live Aid or at the drive-in who, like my mother with her newspaper clippings, actually knew these guys in the band and were happy to watch them having such a stellar moment. Being connected to and enjoying the happiness of others is what community means to me. Community is important. It is certainly something worth the investment of our time and our hearts.

The link to the video for the song “And We Danced” by The Hooters as they opened the North American portion of Live Aid in 1985 can be found here.

The link to the official music video for the song “And We Danced” by The Hooters can be found here.  ***The lyrics version is here. NOTE: For those younger readers of mine, I am curious to know if you can figure out what was going on in the video when the people in the car stopped and locked some of the passengers in the trunk before proceeding into the drive-in. That is such an authentic drive-in detail to have included in this video. But why did they do that?

The link to the official website for The Hooters can be found here.

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