Herman's Hermits

In the 1960’s there was a “British invasion” of music into the United States.

It started with the Beatles of course, followed by other talented performers that included The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Freddy and the Dreamers and of course, Herman’s Hermits.

The lead singer of Herman’s Hermits was then a teenager by the name of Peter Noone. Peter is now 62 years of age, but he still tours with a band that continues to be called Herman’s Hermits. Last night he performed in a small park adjacent to the Village Hall in the suburb in which I live, Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

The park was also next to the public library. Before the show I was killing some time in there. At one point I was in the same room as an Asian man of about 40, who looked out the windows and wondered about the commotion outside. He asked me what was going on. I told him that Herman’s Hermits were about to perform.

“Who?” he asked?

“Herman’s Hermits.”

“Who are they?”

“You know. Sixties band. They sung songs like Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter.”

He had never heard of that song.

It was to be a free concert, but the weather did not cooperate. It rained. And when the band started to perform about half an hour late, it was on a small, portable, covered stage with the Union Jack serving as a backdrop. Peter then began to sing The Ballad of New Orleans, an old Johnny Horton song about the war of 1812.

We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’
There wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago.

Suddenly Peter quit singing. “I always hated that song,” he declared. But later he would congratulate America on its July 4th birthday. Then he followed this up with a reference to the musical British Invasion of the 1960’s, “which was more successful.”

But here’s the thing: in the 1960’s Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits were a headline act. In 2010 they were a freebee concert in the park. And yet the show that Peter put on with his current version of the Hermits was as enthusiastic and uncompromising as any performance I have ever seen. One sensed that Peter just loved singing the old songs; his and others.

And then the magic occurred. My wife and daughter moved up close to the stage and I followed. They then began to dance, not with each other but by themselves. As I watched my wife move, she did so in the exact same way as when she was a teenager and we were dating. Then Peter encouraged everybody to sing with him and everybody did. All of the hits: Silhouettes, Henry the Eighth, There's a Kind of Hush and more. And for one miraculous instant, time flipped backward.

Yes, we were all young again. In that wonderful, marvelous, magical rain.