By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@TheCitizenNews.com

I didn't grow up wanting to be a newspaper man, which is good because some would say I still haven't made it.

And those people are mean with lots of time on their hands.

I didn't want to be an astronaut or a cowboy and I didn't want to be a fireman or a policeman either.

I wanted to be a rock star.

I even asked Santa for a "disco suit" when I was 5 years old. I must have known what I was talking about then, but I have no idea now. Was I asking for a leisure suit or did I want to look like the people on "Solid Gold" and "American Bandstand?" The world may never know.

Rock music played a major role in my life and it still does. (As I write this column, I'm listening to the new U2 album (which is incredible, by the way)). My next door neighbor gave me several Kiss albums when I was 6 or 7. I think he was upgrading to eight track and had no use for them anymore. A friend of my mother's also gave me Grateful Dead 45s, which I spun on my Ernie and Bert record player before they mysteriously disappeared. I guess someone didn't like a first grader singing "Casey Jones."

I also listened to WBCN in Boston every day with my parents in the morning before school. The station played a lot of classic rock: Led Zeppelin, AC-DC, Boston, etc., and eventually those artists and their albums became some of my favorites as well.

The next big musical influence for me was Prince's "Purple Rain." It was the first album, besides Michael Jackson's "Thriller," that I owned. To this day I've never seen the movie (it was rated R and I was 9) but I used to run around playing air guitar to "Let's Go Crazy" on a tennis racket. I was also beginning to watch a new channel on our brand new cable system, MTV. I watched all the videos (That's right, MTV used to play videos 24 hours a day) which were just ads for all types of music and I was probably never the same again.

I wanted to be Steven Tyler singing with Run-DMC. I wanted to be able to play the guitar like Eric Clapton, get the girls like Bon Jovi and fight for my right to party like the Beastie Boys. Rock music was loud. It was fun and it was glamorous. These people were getting paid for playing songs around the country and getting on television. It sounded great to me. It still does.

My first concert was U2 at the Boston Garden. The light system went down temporarily the night before and the band had to play under the same lights that the Celtics played under during their games. The night that my father and I went to the show, they showed us what it looked like and it was amazing. Thousands and thousands of people all united and focused on the band and the music. U2 closed with "Pride (In The Name of Love)" as their encore that night and the crowd continued to sing as they exited the arena.

That is a pretty heavy image for a youngster. I trembled underneath my goose bumps at that connection with so many people and it has only gotten better as the years have progressed. I have seen Bono and the boys four other times since then, and when 80,000 people sing along with that song I get teary-eyed. I get that way because I do believe rock and roll music can save the world. If you can have millions of people riding that same vibe, sharing that experience and believing that together they can make the world a better place, it has to work sometime, doesn't it?

Since that first concert when I was 11, I have seen everybody from The Everly Brothers to Marilyn Manson. I keep all my ticket stubs and each concert has a particular memory for me. I saw Nirvana at the Omni five months before Kurt Cobain committed suicide, I saw Aerosmith for free at its taping of "Dream On" for the MTV 10th anniversary celebration. I was one of about 80 people who saw The Lemonheads play at UGA a few years back and Evan Dando did a 30-minute acoustic set.

I've also seen R.E.M., Arlo Guthrie, The Grateful Dead, Nine Inch Nails, and Limp Bizkit among many, many others.

I like the way the music sounds, I like the way the stage looks and I like the way it makes me feel. I like having an experience that I can share with my friends and also with the people there. I've had 30-minute conversations with complete strangers about the Kid Rock set at Music Midtown.

Maybe someday I'll put out an album, make a video and go on tour. Maybe I'll influence someone through the power of rock 'n' roll. Until then, I'll write this column and just live a rock 'n' roll life-style.

Good night, Fayette County!

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