Earlier this week you might have seen the announcement of ProMedica’s 2019 summer concert lineup for Promenade Park in downtown Toledo.
Perhaps you shook your head in disappointment or grinned with excitement. Maybe you couldn’t care less either way.
Here we go: Poison frontman Bret Michaels kicks off the season June 7, followed by Toad the Wet Sprocket and Big Head Todd and the Monsters, O.A.R., Eric Chesser and Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Killer Queen (Queen tribute band), En Vogue and Kid ‘n Play, Enigma Norteno and Los Humildes Ayala, Dennis DeYoung, Martina McBride, Frankie Ballard, and Chaka Khan, all performing on weekends through September.
Now that you know who’s scheduled to perform, let’s talk about a few things.
After the announcement, there were many angry and happy comments from Facebookians (people on Facebook) who couldn’t help but express their opinion.
“Wow, figured we could attract some semi relevant acts...this is disappointing,” one Facebookian said, while another wrote “Reasons I hate Toledo #1476 = this concert lineup is HUGE NEWS.” Yet the majority of Facebookians were happy. One wrote “En Vogue, Chaka Khan, I’m in right there!!! Holy Toledo!” and another said “OMG.....taking me back to my younger years!”
In fact, it was almost as if you could hear all of the Facebookians in unison recite the Lord’s Prayer, except, of course, according to their community: “Our Facebook, who art on Internet, hallowed be thy social platform, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on stage as it is at Promenade Park.”
Jokes aside, and despite the ticket price increase to $20 at the gate compared to last year’s $10 admission, there’s a much larger picture to ponder.
We live in an area of the country where the weather is cold six to eight months out of the year. We sit inside from late fall into late spring because it’s too painful to stand in the cold. Then of course, seasonal depression kicks in, but I’ll save you from that detail. Yet, it should be mentioned that a device such as the Nature Bright SunTouch Plus exists, which is basically a lamp with the sole purpose of making sure you’re happy by providing light when the sun seems like it never shows its face.
Yet, every year when temperatures finally rise and 50 degrees makes it semi-appropriate for northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan residents to walk around in shorts and tank tops, that’s the call to forget about winter and finally embrace the great outdoors.
Embrace the fact of an outdoor summer concert series existing in your own city. Not Cleveland. Not Detroit. Toledo. That’s not to mention the outdoor concerts at the Toledo Zoo and at Centennial Terrace in Sylvania.
It’s healthy to embrace live music and interaction with people IRL (in real life) instead of through a screen.
Bob Marley once said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
For all of you Facebookians, Instagramians, Twitterians, and Snapchatians, and those IRL, perhaps the happiness presented by warm weather and outdoor music this summer can provide relief after half of a year struggling through the pain of winter.
First Published March 8, 2019, 11:49 a.m.
