... especially the morning after an excellent concert. This rally wasn't cheap but we got back the price of admission last night sitting on hard folding metal chairs in a cold damp tent. Neil Sedaka was the feature entertainment last night and he captivated the crowd for close to 90 minutes.
Yesterday was a bad day for the rally organizers. The Balloon Fiesta Park where we are camped is about 12 miles from the Albuquerque fairgrounds where the trade show is held. The organizers have laid on bus service from here to there but yesterday it all fell apart. Apparently some of the busses didn't show up and then the ones that were working ran into traffic jams so their load factor wasn't working the way it was intended. The result was horrific lineups on the trade show grounds. Some of the people we saw standing in line were there for over 2 hours - in the rain, on concrete, wondering if they would get back for supper and the evening entertainment. To say they were pissed off would be the understatement of the year. The bus fiasco meant that the evening entertainment had to be pushed back over an hour. That meant that we were all getting pretty impatient by the time Neil came on stage. But all was forgotten and forgiven when the little old man on stage started performing.
It was as if Neil's enthusiasm and enjoyment for his music infected his audience. Watching him play the piano it was impossible to ignore the talent that is still pouring out of the man at 70 years of age. Recently he has re-issued some of his greatest hits as children's songs so if you want you can now hear Waking up is Hard to Do, Where the Toys Are & Lunch Will Keep Us Together, among others. We didn't get treated to any of the kids songs but we did get a broad selection from Neils prolific song writing history. Its hard to imagine a better demographic for Neil's entertainment and the crowd loved every single hit.
One of the many highlights of the evening was a duo with Neil's daugher Dara. Dara wasn't present for the concert but through video magic and an exceptional sound technician Neil sang a video duet with his daughter. He also sang a video duo with Dinah Washington and played us what was possibly the first music video, a 1960 recording of Happy Birthday Sweet 16. He said he ran into a woman in L.A. who introduced herself as "January" from that video. "But she was an OLD woman!!"
On the walk home last night we talked about how nice it was to go to a concert where you could understand every word the artist spoke whether singing or just talking to the crowd. Despite performing inside a 220 x 150 foot tent with undoubtedly abominable acoustics we could hear Neil speaking to us and we could understand the lyrics. He obviously fed off the adulation of the crowd, coming back for a couple of encores. You don't get many chances to participate in the kind of concert we attended last night and we certainly didn't expect to be wowed in a cold damp tent on a rainy night in Albuquerque but we were.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Waking up is hard to do .....
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2 comments:
Hello Bob, Glad it hear the day ended on a good note. Neil Sedaka is a great entertainer. I sing "Laughter in the Rain" in my show sometimes. We are sorry we missed it. Have a great rally. All the Best, M&C
He wrote so much that others covered and it is obvious why. The music is just bursting to get out of him. At 70 years there he was feeding off the energy of the audience and loving every minute of it. Watching him play the piano & sing was worth the price of admission all by itself.
The contrast to Rita Coolidge 24 hours later was stark. She may have a decent voice but she isn't even 1% of the entertainer that Sedaka is. I was sick of listening to her name dropping nonsense before she ever sang a song but I gave her three numbers to redeem herself. She didn't so I left. And damn glad I did as it turned out because I got some good shots of the balloon glow while she bored the (dwindling) crowd.
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