by Charlie Azzolina, Langhorne, PA

There was a guy named Moe Septee that used to promote the “Summer of Stars”, which was a series of concerts at Asbury’s Convention Hall. He brought in acts that later became arena fillers to a hall roughtly the size of the Tower Theater. I saw the Who there in 1967, The Doors and The Airplane — in separate shows — in 1968, and acts like Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Yes, Black Sabbath, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer in subsequent years. But one act stands out in my mind: Janis Joplin.

I saw her the weekend after Woodstock in 1969, when I was 14. To this day, it was the most electriying live performance I have ever seen. The crowd brought her back for SEVEN encores, after which they said she was pretty much out of gas. (It was the second show of the evening.) To put it politely, it was like making love to an elcetrical outlet for something like two and a half hours. If you consider life to be a process of oxidation, most of us rust away. She burned like magnesium. I’ll spare you the St. Vincent-Millay quote.