Whoa-oh, China Grove!

When I was a sophomore in high school in central Illinois, we had this thing in our school called the “Leeway.” Essentially, it was a big hallway that connected the old part of the school with a newer addition.
I came from a pretty big high school — somewhere in the neighborhood of between 600 to 1,000 kids per class — so the Leeway was pretty wide and around 50 yards long. It had to accommodate a lot of students.
When we weren’t using it to get from class to class, we hung out in the Leeway. After eating lunch in the cafeteria, the kids would congregate in the Leeway, mostly because there wasn’t anyplace else to go, but also because we were allowed to have a juke box.



Two songs for a quarter. And I’m pretty sure that nearly every day of my sophomore year, I plopped a quarter in that juke box and punched in “China Grove” by the Doobie Brothers. (The other song was “My Maria” by B.W. Stevenson, remade two decades later by country stars Brooks & Dunn.)
It was 1975. And hanging out in the Leeway listening to that song reminds me of a special and happy time in my formative years.
So when the Doobie Brothers broke into “China Grove” during their encore Thursday night at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, PA — more than 35 years later — it was all I could do to not rush the stage. I’m not sure why I didn’t, except for maybe at this age, I figured I might trip and fall down the aisle and break a hip rushing the stage.
It was the first time I had seen the Doobie Brothers live, and I’ll tell you something, they haven’t lost a step. They played all the great classic Doobie Brothers songs and mixed is some songs off the new album, “World Gone Crazy,” which are just as good as the old stuff.
These guys like their guitars a lot, and they like to play them. Loud. The musicianship, showmanship and energy of a veteran group like the Doobie Brothers made for one fabulous show — one of the best I’ve ever seen. It had been a long time since I had come out of a concert with my ears ringing and my chest still thumping.
Original Doobies’ frontmen Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, as well as multi-talented John McFee, were surrounded by kick-tail musicians and performers. I had the opportunity to interview Johnston for a story to preview the show and enjoyed that quite a bit.
And ever since the concert, I’ve been talkin’ ’bout China Grove, whoa-oh-oh, whoa-oh China Grove.
I just wish that I would have rushed the stage for “China Grove.” Even if I had fallen and broken my hip, it would have made for a cool story about how it happened.