Indigo Girls
So I did, in fact, end up at the Zootunes concert last night. It was mostly an amusing series of misadventures.
Turns out the friends who invited me to the show didn't even know who the Indigo Girls were and certainly didn't know what to expect from one of these concerts in the park. We'd originally planned to meet at the North Gate of the zoo at 5:00pm. I decided to take a pretty early bus so I could be absolutely sure to be there before 5:00 because I knew there would likely be a big crowd. Sure enough, when we hopped off the bus at 4:40, there were already significant lines of people at all the zoo gates waiting to be admitted!
Kate had brought our walkie talkies, so I positioned her close to the entrance itself and then I walked back down the already long line to snag a place. The one issue: our friends had the tickets, so if we didn't meet up with them before the gates opened, we were pretty screwed.
The sound-check went long and a zoo volunteer came down the line to let us know entry would be delayed for a bit. Still no sign of our friends. Kate and I chatted on the radios until the line started to move. I made it all the way to the gate and had to step back out of line to let others pass. Finally our friends arrived at about 5:20, having only just then been able to find parking. We then walked all the way back to the end of the line (which had been steadily moving into the park this whole time) and when we joined it the end was exactly where I'd held my original spot. When we got to the field, nearly every inch was already staked out but we wormed our way into a smallish patch of grass between three other families and laid our blanket. We were at the farthest edge of the field, far from the stage.
I missed the opening act, despite being right there. They were poorly mic'd and neither the introduction nor their music carried to where we were. The kids and I played a few hands of Old Maid while the kids of the family in front of us alternately read various of the Narnia titles or watched us play. When the Indigo Girls themselves came on we settled down a bit. They opened with Closer to Fine and then went off into songs I don't know at all (since the last Indigo Girls music I heard was in '90-'91 when I was living in Georgia and Lisa Stevens was completely obsessed and learning to play their songs on her guitar in the old Lion Rampant/White Wolf house/office). I think Closer to Fine and Watershed are the only two Indigo Girls songs I could name off the top of my head. Anyway, it became abundantly clear that neither the kids nor my friends were into this (at one point marveling that so many people would pay $35 a head for tickets to hear two people doing an acoustic show in a field). At what I assume was the mid-point of the show, a surprise guest came on: Brandi Carlile was introduced and sang "Hallelujah" (which I gather was a popular Jeff Buckley song; I'd heard it somewhere but couldn't tell you where... kinda like I managed to pick up that James Blunt "Beautiful" song somehow). It was at this point that my hosts clearly wished they'd never come, so I suggested we leave. I figured it was better to let the people who paid for their tickets enjoy the concert they came for. It was a nice evening and the music, while almost completely unfamiliar to me, wasn't setting my teeth on edge or anything but I realize I have more eclectic tastes than many. I'd really come for the company most of all, so it was no great hardship to leave early. My friends gave us a ride back to the house, came inside to meet Bonnie (Kate had been dying to introduce little Evan to her bunny) and we're going to get together again sometime next month. Probably for bowling.
Turns out the friends who invited me to the show didn't even know who the Indigo Girls were and certainly didn't know what to expect from one of these concerts in the park. We'd originally planned to meet at the North Gate of the zoo at 5:00pm. I decided to take a pretty early bus so I could be absolutely sure to be there before 5:00 because I knew there would likely be a big crowd. Sure enough, when we hopped off the bus at 4:40, there were already significant lines of people at all the zoo gates waiting to be admitted!
Kate had brought our walkie talkies, so I positioned her close to the entrance itself and then I walked back down the already long line to snag a place. The one issue: our friends had the tickets, so if we didn't meet up with them before the gates opened, we were pretty screwed.
The sound-check went long and a zoo volunteer came down the line to let us know entry would be delayed for a bit. Still no sign of our friends. Kate and I chatted on the radios until the line started to move. I made it all the way to the gate and had to step back out of line to let others pass. Finally our friends arrived at about 5:20, having only just then been able to find parking. We then walked all the way back to the end of the line (which had been steadily moving into the park this whole time) and when we joined it the end was exactly where I'd held my original spot. When we got to the field, nearly every inch was already staked out but we wormed our way into a smallish patch of grass between three other families and laid our blanket. We were at the farthest edge of the field, far from the stage.
I missed the opening act, despite being right there. They were poorly mic'd and neither the introduction nor their music carried to where we were. The kids and I played a few hands of Old Maid while the kids of the family in front of us alternately read various of the Narnia titles or watched us play. When the Indigo Girls themselves came on we settled down a bit. They opened with Closer to Fine and then went off into songs I don't know at all (since the last Indigo Girls music I heard was in '90-'91 when I was living in Georgia and Lisa Stevens was completely obsessed and learning to play their songs on her guitar in the old Lion Rampant/White Wolf house/office). I think Closer to Fine and Watershed are the only two Indigo Girls songs I could name off the top of my head. Anyway, it became abundantly clear that neither the kids nor my friends were into this (at one point marveling that so many people would pay $35 a head for tickets to hear two people doing an acoustic show in a field). At what I assume was the mid-point of the show, a surprise guest came on: Brandi Carlile was introduced and sang "Hallelujah" (which I gather was a popular Jeff Buckley song; I'd heard it somewhere but couldn't tell you where... kinda like I managed to pick up that James Blunt "Beautiful" song somehow). It was at this point that my hosts clearly wished they'd never come, so I suggested we leave. I figured it was better to let the people who paid for their tickets enjoy the concert they came for. It was a nice evening and the music, while almost completely unfamiliar to me, wasn't setting my teeth on edge or anything but I realize I have more eclectic tastes than many. I'd really come for the company most of all, so it was no great hardship to leave early. My friends gave us a ride back to the house, came inside to meet Bonnie (Kate had been dying to introduce little Evan to her bunny) and we're going to get together again sometime next month. Probably for bowling.
'Halleluia' appears in a bunch of movies (most recently The Edukators, I think), and there's a Leonard Cohen version that's quite well known.