By LAMAR THAMES

The Wandering Tourist took a different turn last week and wound up at a Jimmy Buffett concert in Orlando. Of course, it wasn’t an unexpected adventure. My son Jeff’s wife gave him two tickets to the concert for his birthday and he asked me if I wanted to go with him.

Of course, I did. It is one of the things that Jeff and I have in common and I was anxious to share the experience with him. Needless to say, it probably made a few other people in his life jealous that he had asked me to go, but I was the logical choice since I am the next biggest Buffett fan in the family after him.

Ironically, this was the second Buffett concert I have attended with one of my children. The first was in the early 1980s with my daughter, Wendy. I think this speaks volumes as to why Buffett is still such a huge concert draw, even though he hasn’t had a top 10 solo record in decades. His appeal crosses generational lines and has reached such cult status that it possibly exceeds even the Grateful Dead.

But why? What is it about a Buffett concert that makes it so fascinating, considering the fact that he is a marginally talented musician and song writer and has only a passable singing voice? That is one of the questions I set out to learn during the recent concert at the Amway Center in Orlando.

IT ALL STARTS WITH FUN

Perhaps the biggest thing you can take away from listening to Buffett music or attending one of his concerts is that it is so much fun. Buffett has cornered the market on a laid-back island lifestyle and music genre that resonates so much with his fans. No one else has made that connection with as much intensity as Buffett.

Buffett exudes a perpetual party atmosphere and as he says in one of his songs, It’s 5 o’clock Somewhere. The pre-concert atmosphere in the Amway Center parking lot  featured RVs, pick-ups and partiers, some from as far away as Oklahoma, and, of course, margaritas and Land Shark beer in abundance. I have to say, though, that I didn’t see any knee-walking drunks; just a lot of people having fun.

Among those were Suzanne of Melbourne, Fla., her 30-something year-old sons Chris and Nick, and her sister Teresa.

“I have never been to a Buffett concert,” said Suzanne, decked out in a coconut-shaped brazier matching the ones Chris and Teresa wore. Of course, the bras were worn over warmer clothes underneath because it was cold outside, baby!

Chris is a dedicated Parrothead (one of the self-anointed Buffett devotees) and attends Buffett concerts religiously. His mother had never attended a Buffett concert and were surprised when they found they both had bought tickets for the Orlando venue.

Among the other sights witnessed during my pre-concert tour of the parking lot was a group of troubadours singing (badly off key, I might ad) Boat Drinks, while sitting on a small dry-docked row boat.

My son Jeff said there is just no on else like Buffett. “He has the laid-back, island style genre all to himself.”

FOR SOME, IT IS A FAMILY THING

In addition to the ones already mentioned, including two of my children and me, I met a family with  9- and 14-year-old daughters in attendance at the concert.  The girls were not mere tag-alongs either. Both of them were decked out in prerequisite Hawaiian leis and each had their own favorite Buffett tunes.

For 9-year-old Morgan, it was Fins, and for Delaney, One Particular Harbor. Mom Mary and dad Matt, from Satellite Beach, said the girls were the ones who played Buffett around the house and even had his music on their ipods.

While the crowd was decidedly older (some appeared to be approaching their 80s), there were plenty of younger people in attendance,

Janet, Donna and Ray had a family thing going, too, but in a different fashion. Sisters and long-time Buffett affectionadosJanet and Donna were introducing Donna’s husband “Mustang” Ray to the whole phenomenon and he seemed to enjoy it. Janet’s favorite is Barometer Soup while Donna favors Come Monday. Ray said he hadn’t found a favorite song yet, but if there is anything about Mustangs, he’d be all for it. He was wearing a cool looking shirt adorned with Mustang drawings.

IT IS ALSO ABOUT THE MUSIC

Most of Buffett’s music is catchy with a lot of sing-along-anthems, which, unfortunately, entice the audience to do that. Listening to the soundtrack on some of the very grainy live video I took during the Orlando concert, you can hear some poor sing-along voices in the background. I am not saying who it is (but I definitely thought I sounded better than that. No wonder the church choir rejected me.)

Buffett’s appeal ranges from the raunchiness of Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw (which he didn’t sing in Orlando), to the silliness of Pencil Thin Mustache and the thoughtfulness of  Come Monday. He also throws in homages to soul-searching (He Went to Paris); generations (Son of a Son of a Sailor); and lost opportunities (A Pirate Looks at 40).

In a 2004 article, Rolling Stone magazine sums up Buffett’s appeal like this:

“A former journalist and history major, Buffett unassumingly puts his literate background to good use. His story-songs resonate with sharp observations; his travelogues include a strong sense of time and place; his shaggy-dog tales stay on the leash. And most important, he applies his wry sense of humor to his brand of counterculture hedonism, even as he celebrates it.”

Buffett has gone through several reincarnations of himself from country pop to island fantasy and most recently to more pure country and western with License to Chill, an album that Rolling Stone praised as “a mature artist getting his second wind.”

While that is satisfying to a lot of fans, it is still the old standards of Cheeseburger in Paradise, Margaritaville and Fins that keep the crowds crying for more.

Sing on, Jimmy. We love you, man!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Let me apologize for the quality of the video attached to this report. I didn’t think I would be able to get into the Amway Center with a camera or video equipment, so I brought along a cheap version of both that just didn’t work out too well. So, if you skip the video, I will understand.