The simple truth is that we'd never heard of Bob Marley. That's how isolated we were both culturally and physically one freezing night my freshman year of college before time was invented in 1979. Mired in the depression of a transplanted Californian in upstate New York, I was desperate to escape from my demons and a school where apparently no one even dressed up for Halloween. I slouched myself down the hill to Reed Athletic Center to see whatever band, whatever shining star our radio music director, the late Andy Dean had managed to drag into Hamilton from New York. (In '78, we later learned, Andy had brought the Grateful Dead to Hamilton.)
Tickets were $10 from the girl at the cash box. No line. She looked at me sceptically. The show had started. It was was a gamble on a student budget. When she pushed the door, a cloud of marijuana and music drifting under the door turned into pure energy. My freshman gloom supernovaed.
The stage was jammed with musicians, costumes, singers, light, pot and --what was that Jamaican music? Even reggae sounded completely new. The room was only 2/3rd full - a mix of dreadlock fans who'd driven from New York and 1/2 with Colgate students who had wandered in from the gloom.
By the second song I was euphoric. I had inched as close to the stage as I dared (those rasta guys seemed huge), and as far away from Colgate as I'd ever been. A trip out of the grey and into the sun. You didn't need to light up a smoke to feel like a love parade. And those dancing Jamaican women...
When I finally made it back to my dorm room, a couple hall-mates wondered what had happened to me . We looked the band's name up in the paper - Bob Marley and the Wailers. "You'd never believe it!" I exclaimed. Some one said "Never heaerd of him."
All that had changed for me thanks to our student music director and Bob's willingness to take Survival on an improbably amazing road show. Rumor was that Andy lost his job for blowing the whole semester budget on one concert. Undoubtably a brilliant mood. Is it true the Doors had played Colgate in the 60's?