Air Supply Greatest Hits
As I head to CHQ for another summer, I reminisce about becoming a gigantic music fan partially thanks to Air Supply.
I’ve spent most of my life spending summers at Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. If Chautauqua were on the East Coast, it would be populated by people who use the word “summer” as a verb, and CHQ isn’t short on privileged people these days, but even at its snootiest, it retains most of its historical, folksy charm. I start with CHQ because there would be no Album of Record website without it. I have no idea who I would be without it. In this one place - (yes, the one where Salman Rushdie was nearly stabbed to death last year1) - I became a music fan, I sang live in front of people for the first time in a non-school-choir capacity. I was exposed to so many types of art, whether I was a fan or not, that it helped shape me in ways I can’t even begin to imagine.
At the center of Chautauqua is the open-air amphitheater. Inside that amphitheater, there is art nearly every night of the summer. As a heathen from a very young age, I never ever went to “Sacred Song Service” on Sunday nights, but I’m guessing that qualifies as well. Chautauqua has its own symphony, comprised of incredible musicians from all over the world. They play pops concerts and classical staples numerous times over the summer. Chautauqua also hosts top-notch performers in more contemporary concerts. Growing up, I saw Peter, Paul, and Mary, 10,000 Maniacs, Barenaked Ladies, Sheryl Crow, Junior Walker and the All-Stars, Johnny Mathis, Arlo Guthrie, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Ben Folds, and yes, the topic of today’s post… Air Supply.
I absolutely love Air Supply, which might come as a surprise. Chautauqua is the reason that one of their concerts became one of my earliest core musical memories. I must have been six or seven years old. Air Supply came to Chautauqua, and I had no idea who they were. I wasn’t excited to go to the concert any more than I got excited about anything in those days. I just did what my family did. We headed to the Amp for the concert, and then the music started, and I was enthralled. I remember being too little to see over the standing-room audience in the back of the amp, but someone allowed me to sit on the step at their feet in the aisle. Every couple of songs, my dad popped his head over to check on me and see how I was doing. I don’t remember it exactly, but I know I communicated in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want to leave early that night. I had a perfect view of the band from upper stage right. What I saw was a comically striking duo of the tallest and shortest dueling lead singers I’ve ever seen.
Russell Hitchcock is 5’7” tall, while Graham Russell is 6’5” tall. They'd be a perfect comedy duo if they didn’t write and sing such beautiful, saccharine music together. They both have incredible ranges, but Russell’s beautiful tenor sounds straight out of Broadway. It’s no wonder that the Australian duo met on the set of a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1975.
Including the two singers - essentially the only permanent band members of Air Supply - the band seemed impossibly large on stage. There was a lead guitarist, a keyboard player, a bass player and a drummer while Russell Hitchcock traded vocals with Graham Russell, who often played acoustic and rhythm guitar as well. The sounds were huge when they were huge. They were tender when they were tender. These guys kept singing about love and I didn’t really understand it the way an adult would understand it, but the music made me feel all of it, well except maybe “Making Love Out of Nothing At All.” That one would wait more than a decade to hit home.
“Lost in Love”
“All Out of Love”
“Making Love Out of Nothing At All”
They had an album called “Love and Other Bruises” featuring a song with the same title and also a song called “Who Will Love Me Now.”
Air Supply was to Love what the Red Hot Chili Peppers are to California. And look, it’s cheesy now, but I make no apologies for how much it impacted me as a kid. Imagine sitting and listening to this as a kid. Graham Russell opens “All Out of Love” with this beautiful verse and makes way to Russell Hitchcock’s striking chorus. The second verse rolls in and Russell pipes in with some high harmonies. And when he hits all those high notes, it looks just effortless like his voice was constructed in a factory to create a perfect singing machine. It’s like he doesn’t need to take a deep breath to hit those notes. It’s so impressive. He doesn’t take a single note off from the album. And when he goes in for the final note of “wrong,” which he holds for an impossibly long time, it’s death-defyingly beautiful.
I loved that concert so much that I demanded to own an Air Supply cassette tape. I don’t remember if we had to go to Ames that week, but it was probably Ames where I got my tape of the 1984 Air Supply’s Greatest Hits. The track list is interesting to read now that I know where I ended up as a graduated emo kid.
“Lost in Love”
“Even the Nights Are Better”
“The One That You Love”
“Every “Woman in the World”
“Chances”
“Making Love Out of Nothing At All” Which was written by Jim Steinman of Meat Loaf “I’d Do Anything for Love” fame among many many more.
“All Out of Love”
“Here I Am”
“Sweet Dreams”
I played that tape over and over again just to bring back the memories - so that I could re-enchant my brain in half as vividly as had happened with them singing live in my personal space. Listening to those songs, I almost couldn’t believe I’d been there. I’d seen that. I’d experienced this thing that other people could only just listen to. I developed that live concert FOMO2 that infects me to this day.
I probably stopped listening to Air Supply shortly thereafter. I quickly got into Poison, and Bon Jovi in the late 80s and into the early 90s before going Guns ‘N Roses superfan and ultimately full grunge. I certainly didn’t ever talk about Air Supply and I never bought their album on CD to replace that old tape. Only now that I’m in my 40s did this story even occur to me. If you asked me about what kinds of music formed me early, I’d probably have only listed the Motown, Lionel Richie or maybe Hall & Oates, which seemed to retain more of a cool factor than Air Supply.
I never mention the fact that my dad loved Barbra Streisand, and I heard those songs from The Broadway Album over and over too.
I’ll never mention that “Somewhere” from West Side Story as sung by Barbra Streisand was one of the first songs that ever game me goosebumps. At about three minutes the drum set kicks in with the most comically huge snare drum you’ve heard since Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” From that point, the song is just brilliant and incredible.
Oh wait. I think I just mentioned it. Shrug.
When my wife and I watched Glee, I also loved listening to Idina Menzel and Lea Michele sing “Somewhere.” When they harmonize at the end it’s waterworks. How’s my indie cred now? Damnit dad!
I can blame it on my parents, but you know what? It’s incredibly good. I won’t apologize for it anymore. But make no mistake, Barbra Streisand’s version of Jingle Bells from her Christmas album can be shot directly into the sun for all time. It absolutely stinks. It’s obnoxious and nearly as obnoxious as my annual rant about how much I hate it during family holiday gatherings. Nearly.
I’m a lot to deal with. Really. But so is this shitty song.
ENOUGH WITH THE STREISAND EFFECT. AIR SUPPLY. CHAUTAUQUA.
And soon enough, I’ll be right back at Chautauqua getting ready for another phenomenal season of music. Of course, the orchestra will be there, as well as special visits from Natalie Merchant, The Revivalists, Band of Horses, and a bunch more. I’ll love some of the ones I know. I’ll dislike some others that I don’t, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll go to see something that I have no idea about beforehand, and I’ll be swept up the way I was back in the day when Air Supply rolled into town. That’s what I keep chasing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I don’t mean to gloss over this, but I can’t begin to tell you what an isolated incident this is in the history of Chautauqua. I’m by no means blaming the victim, but he’s been a target for so long, that I can’t help but treat it as the most isolated incident in Chautauqua’s history. This place has hosted journalists, politicians, and what feels like millions of people, and this is the only serious incident I can remember in my 44 years on this earth.
Fear of Missing Out - If I don’t go to a show, I feel like it’s a once in a lifetime experience that is forever gone and happened without me.