It has been a busy past few days. On
Thursday we got together with Barry’s brother, Richard, who lives in Florida
but was in New York on a visit. It was our first time meeting his new …. what word can I use? “Girlfriend” seems a bit
odd for a couple in their 70s. “Lady Friend” seems too formal and old
fashioned. Is “partner” the right word? I guess I should have asked them what
they prefer to be called. But likely the best answer is that whatever moniker
they might choose, we were thrilled to have a chance to finally meet Jill, and
we wish them only much good health and happiness.
On Friday afternoon we saw the new film
“Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation,” a documentary about the
famous event held in upstate New York during the weekend of August 15-18, 1969.
The emphasis was much less on the music than on the experiences of some of the
organizers and attendees, including some footage of Max Yasgur, on whose farm near
Bethel, New York, the festival took place. The preparation for the event was rocky and
the facility was not ready in time, so when literally hundreds of thousands made
their way to the site, the infrastructure was not in place to take care of
them. Yet, somehow, between generous local residents and the good spirits of
the over 400,000 attendees, the event was an amazing success. Although there
were problems, particularly with drug overdoses and bad weather, overall it was
an incredibly powerful and positive experience for most of the attendees.
Sadly, it is hard to imagine such an event having this outcome today.
In August of 1969 my family had just
moved from St. Louis to West Hartford, Connecticut. I was 17 years old, did not
really know anyone my age (until the start of the school year in September),
and I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine my parents would have let me go.
Still, there is great nostalgia watching the various films about the festival and
just thinking about what it must have been like to be there.
We had a nice Shabbat. We had invited our friends Judy and Lanny to join us for a light supper (Seudah Shlishit). We had not gotten together since well before Passover so it was wonderful to have time to catch up.
On Sunday, being in the Woodstock mode, we went to see another new film, “Echo in the Canyon.” This movie was directed by Andrew Slater and featured Jakob Dylan’s performances and extensive interviews with many former Woodstock performers and folk/rock musicians of the 1960s and 70s, including David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young (CSNY), Jackson Browne, Ringo Starr (The Beatles), Roger McGuinn (The Byrds), Michelle Phillips (The Mamas and the Papas), Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), and the late Tom Petty (Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers, in interviews filmed shortly before he died of cardiac arrest on October 2nd of 2017, two weeks short of his 67th birthday). There were also interviews with and performances by contemporary artists who have recorded some of the work from the 1960s icons, including Nora Jones and Beck. This was really a first-rate documentary, and the minute it ended my comment to Barry was that I really would like to see it again. We had a brief conversation with a couple of fellows sitting next to us and they agreed whole-heartedly!
One of the reasons we went into the City to see the movie was because we had tickets Sunday evening for Billy Joel’s 65th monthly sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden (the run started in January of 2014). So far there are five more shows that have been booked:
Thursday Jul 11, 2019
Wednesday Aug 28, 2019
Friday Sep 27, 2019
Friday Oct 25, 2019
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Billy, who recently (on May 9th) celebrated his 70th birthday, sounded terrific! Here is the full set list:
Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
Pressure
Vienna (audience choice over Just The Way You Are)
The Entertainer
Zanzibar
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
Layla (Derek and the Dominos cover) (coda only)
Don't Ask Me Why
New York State of Mind
Say Goodbye to Hollywood
Allentown
She's Always a Woman
Pour Some Sugar on Me (Def Leppard cover, with Joe Elliott on vocals)
My Life
Only the Good Die Young
Sometimes a Fantasy
The River of Dreams
Dancing in the Street (Martha Reeves and The Vandellas cover, with Crystal Taliefero on vocals)
Nessun dorma (Giacomo Puccini cover, with Mike Del Guidice on vocals)
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
Piano Man
Encores:
We Didn't Start the Fire
Uptown Girl
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me
Big Shot
You May Be Right (with “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin snippet sung by Mike Del Guidice)
Looks like lovely weather here in New York the next few days. We took a little time this afternoon and headed over to the Bronx Zoo, just to walk around outside. There were busloads of school children of all ages, clearly thrilled to be out in the nice weather, as were we.
Have a great week!
Love,
Rebecca
No comments:
Post a Comment