The Captain and the Kid

We mixed right in with the Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters Wednesday afternoon during the matinee showing of Piano Men Generations.

You’d be surprised how raucous that kind of crowd can be, especially when they’re egged on by a talented father/son duo singing and playing their favorite tunes.

My own mother was up on her feet dancing and clapping as Terry and Nick Davies and their band took us through the best of Billy Joel and Elton John’s catalogs.

So joyful was their their romp through Allentown and the Crocodile Rock that we couldn’t help but join in the fun.

“We hope you have fun tonight,” Nick said. “But, even if you don’t, we will because we’re out here together.”

Terry took us through his post-show routine.

“The first thing I do after a show, the very first thing, is that I hug my son,” he said.

The duo and their whole band come by their joie de vivre and their unabashed closeness honestly. They all survived a fatal crash last October that taught them to appreciate how fragile and precious life can be. Having wrapped up a California tour, they were making their way back to their homes in Arizona. At 3 :30 a.m., just 10 miles from their destination, Nick and three other band members were asleep in their tour bus bunks. Terry sat in the back. Just as guitar player Lewis Riley got up to speak to their tour bus driver, a vehicle driving up the wrong lane on the highway smashed into the tour bus head on.

Lewis was thrown through the windshield and out onto the highway 30 yards away. Terry, knocked unconscious, split his head open. The driver of the other vehicle died.

Terry told us that remarkable story midway through the show and he pointed out that everyone in the band, even Lewis, stood up there on that stage with them.

“It puts the song ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ in a whole new perspective,” Nick said.

Maybe they always played their twin baby grands as passionately as they did for us. Maybe they carpe’d their diems even before they experienced such a frightening example of how quickly those diems can disappear.

I just know how privileged we were to see them perform and how grateful we were for the experience.