Our very last Summertime Rewind post is brought to us by our own Rockford, who as I type this is singing Vanessa Williams’ “Saved the Best for Last” to me. Which really does something for his rock & roll street cred, doesn’t it?

Like everyone else, I have lots of great summer memories. Family gatherings on hot days, road trips, vacations to exotic locations (you know, like Wisconsin or other upper Mid-Western states), cookouts, playing frisbee in the backyard — all of these are in the memory banks.

The memory that recently rose to the surface of my recollection relates to summertime concerts. I have seen lot of shows over the years, and many of them in the summertime. Funny thing, the summertime heat seems to bring out the classic rockers that find a welcome reception on the state fair/theme park rotation. You know, we’ve all seen the billboards beckoning us to come see Bad Company at some regional casino usually in July or August.

My first concert rock was one of these special summertime shows — The Steve Miller Band at Six Flags over Georgia in 1994 with my best friend Don.

Don and I had driven down the night before the show to stay at his grandparents’ house. The morning before the concert, we went out to try our hand at the fishing in the lake by their house. Don nabbed a large-mouth bass and I nabbed nothing, but the water was beautiful and we had a great time.

Later that day, we drove into Atlanta proper and bummed around record shops and a baseball card emporium, where I purchased a pack of 1993 Upper Deck SP and pulled the Ken Griffey die-cut all star card. Book value at the time was $50. I was over the moon and sold it back to the card shop owner for $30 in cash.

Then it was time to head to Six Flags. I have never been much of a theme park fan — when our eight-grade class went to Six Flags for the class trip, I politely declined. Who wants to ride a bus for that long in June in the South? The lines, the screaming, all the people with “the thousand-yard stare.” Not my thing.

Anyway, eventually we headed over to Six Flags. We got there about three hours before the show, and I never have been exactly sure why we did because we had no intention of riding a single ride. We wandered around the park for a couple hours watching a lot of other people have fun, but we did not partake — in retrospect, it was a bad choice. We should have just gone nuts and had a good time, but Don and I were 50 by the time we turned 16 so I guess it wasn’t in the cards.

The show started around dusk. The small amphitheater filled in pretty nicely. The crowd was pretty into it. I recall having recently acquired an LP copy of Book of Dreams at the flea market in Mountain City, GA for a dollar so my appreciation for the band was beyond just merely owning the greatest hits. As iTunes says, I was moving on to the “next steps” on the path to the “deeper cuts.” And the show was great — maybe in reality it stunk, maybe the guys were all out of tune and the laser show was lame, but for me it was hugely important because it was the first one. The scales were removed, and my eyes were opened to the glory of a rock concert.

After the show, while we were waiting in traffic to get out of the park, some kids high on something other than life were running around handing out pages from a Latin dictionary. For a long time I kept my pages but I’m not sure where they are now. Probably still somewhere in my boxes of stuff next to some Starting Line Up figures. But I’ll never forget that feeling, the post concert haze, ears ringing, sweaty hair, blaring Europe ’72 from the car stereo (which was pretty sweet for a mid-80s Grand Prix. All those tips paved the way for a boss Sony in-dash CD player.)

Don was pretty bitten by the bug, too. The next day we went to the mall on our way out of town and he purchased the Steve Miller Band box set (didn’t even know there was one, did you?). He’s the only guy I know who actually bought CD box sets and actually listened to them. I like buying the individual albums, but to each his own.

And that is the story of my first summer concert and the events surrounding it (to the best of my recollection). There were many more to come, but those are for another time.