Bittersweet Rendez-Vous With the Wiggles

Sometimes when the family goes to a kids' concert, it's not really about the kids.

The Wiggles are undergoing a traumatic upheaval - Murray, Jeff and - most importantly - Greg are retiring this year, leaving only Anthony and three newbies who will wear the same respective colors, but it will not be the same!

One has to remember that the Wiggles were a gigantic part of our lives a few years ago.  For two years of his early youth - something like three-and-a-half to five-and-a-half - Daniel had two yellow turtlenecks, in the style of his ego-ideal, Greg, and at times would only respond to the name "Greg," like someone who has undergone a radical identity-shift.  Both he and Daniel loved the Wiggles, and had any number Wiggles dolls of different makes and models, as well as a hardy collection of video DVDs.  They have now attended Wiggles concerts in three different states.  You might not be surprised if your child is accompanied out of the stadium by the police, at a rock concert, as a teenager (even though you'd be horrified), but it takes some getting used to when the culprit is four.  Daniel pitched such a tantrum, at the end of his first Wiggles concert, that a Manchester police officer helped Amy get him out of the stadium, after she so brutally declined to buy him some expensive piece of Wiggles paraphernalia on the way out.  Daniel used to give impromptu concerts for anyone who would listen, bouncing up and down yelping "Yummy yummy yummy yummy fruit sa-LA-A--AD" ("Fruit Salad"), and other masterpieces, such as "Hot Potato."  His makeshift audiences adored him.He would even sing "mashed banahnah in the patois of his Australian heroes.    [My favorite was when he would sing "Old Spaghetti" instead of "Cold Spaghetti"...]

Two years ago, we drove about 250 miles to see them in concert, like so many Dead Heads, at the Long Island Coliseum.

So we had to go for the Swansong Tour, when they came to the Orpheum in Boston yesterday.

But by now, the enthusiasm came primarily from the parents, rather than the children.  We have a strong, very sentimental attachment to these four nursery-rhyme-singing Ozzies in bright-colored pullovers, because Ian and Daniel brought them to the center of our world during those glorious years when we were entirely at the mercy of two very little boys - ones with very strong identities and a robust will and energy level.  I told Amy we should really see if the children actually want to go to the [Real] Wiggles' final tour before I schedule a half-day off from work and we buy the tickets, even though they were on sale.

It turned out that Daniel was definitely interested in going, and Ian was definitely interested in not going, but since we didn't have anywhere else for Ian to go while the rest of the family rocked with the Wiggles, he was literally our captive audience.  In spite of his acquiescent manner, he actually took several opportunities to remind us that he didn't want to be there.  It took Daniel some time to get him out of his shell, but he definitely enjoyed the concert.  Madeleine doesn't know the Wiggles - she has been to their concerts, but this might be the first time she required a ticket of her own.  She rose to the occasion.  She couldn't do all the culty, audience-participation things that people in the know do, but she clearly enjoyed it, especially Dorothy the Dinosaur, and the new female Wiggle who is replacing Greg (as if Greg were somehow replaceable).  Yes, there's a Wigglette in the next generation of the group.  [All three newbies/wannabees were introduced at this transitional concert.  The girl-Wiggle is pleasantly daffy and sweet, and right up Madeleine's ally.]

I had been planning to wear a simple, blue pullover shirt, in the tradition of Anthony, for the occasion, but I had to drive the boys to school when they missed the bus, and I forgot to take it with me to work, and on to the concert, in all the morning hubbub.  I'm not normally such a groupie - I haven't been since my days of composing imitation Beatles songs at age eight and singing them in a Bostonian child's attempt at a Liverpool accent.  [And then there was the time I tried to translate their song  "I Dig a Pony" into Greek, complete with a Greek-English/English-Greek dictionary, around 8 or 9.  I didn't actually know Greek at the time, aside from a few oft-repeated phrases, but I knew the alphabet and how to look up words...]  But now my new Fab Four were Australians, lo these almost-four-decades later...

But here's the ultimate vignette to capture Daniel's paradox of being too-old-for-the-Wiggles while still loving them: he didn't want to wear his purple Jeff shirt (complete with the Wiggles logo) - which is still big enough for him, and is in his bureau, because people might think it's too "babyish," but he made a point of wearing black pants, as part of a makeshift Wiggles demi-uniform.  He was a crypto-Wiggles-fan for the day.

So we went.  We sang and danced a little.  Greg came around to collect bones from the audience for Wags the Dog - something only initiates would understand - and Amy went over and told him, "My son wore a yellow shirt and would answer only to 'Greg' for two years of his life."  Greg showed pleasant surprise, and he seemed to make a point of saying hi to our part of the audience.  I was especially pleased because two out of the four Wiggles were not present at the concert we attended (my first, on Long Island).  I felt cheated at the time, but that deficiency has been redeemed.  Also, Greg had been sick for awhile, with Sam taking his place during that hiatus.  I was very happy to see Greg back and healthy, and to see him in the flesh, even if he is en route to retirement.

At the end of concert, they did a medley of all the old-time songs - or most of the best ones, so we rose to our feet.   During "Hot Potato," the lady in back of me told me, "You should be a Wiggle!"  I told her that was a very high compliment.  Finally, Anthony gave us some time alone with Jeff, Murray and Greg on the stage by himself, and confetti fell from the ceiling over them as they waved to the swooning crowd.

In the men's room, on the way out, Daniel asked me to hold something from him so it wouldn't get wet while he washed his hands (etc.):  it was the outgoing Wiggles' confetti.

(October 11, 2012)