These first couple days of spring haven't been exactly warm, but they've been sunny, which has me thinking about the John Denver classic "Sunshine on My Shoulders."

And, thinking about that song has me thinking about the time I saw him in concert. I'm guessing the year was 1976 (or maybe early 1977), so I would have been 10 years old. The concert was at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In the audience were me, my mother, our pastor, and his wife (they were young). We drove to NYC in their orange and white VW van (I said it was the '70s), had dinner at some sort of Greek pizza place, then saw the concert. The opening act was STARLAND VOCAL BAND.

I don't remember too much about the concert itself. But, I remember that our seats were very near the top. If there were any rows behind us, there weren't many. I also seem to recall that neither Starland Vocal Band nor John Denver had a backup group. They were just there, in the middle of the Garden floor, on a small stage, playing their own acoustic guitars. No fuss, no muss, just music. Simple.