The Ides of March
The phrase “beware the Ides of March”, a warning from the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, is as well-known as Caesar’s cry “Es tu, Brute?” when his best buddy drove his knife into his back. In Roman society, Ides referred to the first full moon of a given month, which usually fell between the 13th and 15th. In fact, the Ides of March once signified the new year, which meant celebrations and rejoicing.
It was also a band from the inner Chicago suburb of Berwyn that hit the charts in the late Sixties and early Seventies. “Vehicle”, a horn-driven ditty from 1970 about a slimy dude offering goodies to a young girl from his fancy black sedan (and strangely professing his love for God as he’s making his sleazy plea), hit #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Their only other major hit was “L. A. Goodbye”, more of a mellow acoustic number about the singer flying out of Los Angeles and thinking of the west side of Chicago. Lead singer/songwriter Jim Peterik went on to further success with Survivor and with writing songs for other groups.
The Ides/Survivor band still does the local oldies circuit with several original members, often as part of a big Chicago band mashup show including most if not all of the following 60s bands: The New Colony Six, The Cryan Shames, The Shadows of Knight, The Buckinghams, etc. This is the Boomer Jukebox Circuit: Play the hits and get off stage. The Arcada Theater and a sea of silver hair.
It’s March 15th again, and the store shelves are stripped bare, the lights of the theaters are going out, and far off in the distance is the soothsayer, clicking furiously on his Aldus lamp, trying to tell us something (Monty Python fans may appreciate this shameless reference).
