I love a free concert in the summer, even when it's hotter than Hades out. Today was no exception. I hadn't actually attended a concert since leaving Orange County, where I used to go to the Jazz concerts put on at the Hiatt in Newport Beach.
I found out John Waite was performing at Warner Center Park. A longtime fan, I packed up my trusty backpack with water, a sandwich, sunscreen and a book to keep me occupied until the show started. I also took a small summer blanket and a low beach chair, and set out early to stake my place.
As it turned out, I arrived in time for sound check, and got a couple of bonus songs out of it, as John Waite played for about 40 of us who arrived by 4:30PM. The show opened with Jessica Sands, who said she was really nervous but had a quite incredible voice. She said she started writing songs at the age of 3, to Kermit the Frog, which was an interesting intro.
John Waite came on after her, and he gave us a great show--his own material with different arrangements, including, of course, "Missing You," which did NOT close out the show, ballads, rock and even country. I read a couple of write-ups this past week, and one of them emphasized he had not had any more hits after "Missing You," but he has never been a one-hit wonder and has an arsenal of music at his disposal.
One of the most interesting phenomena wasn't up on stage. It was the continuous parade of people on the half-moon walkway in front of the stage. There were some really strange people wandering around: a man on a bicycle with a German Shephard on leash came past twice, as did an old woman with a pronounced limp and walking like it took her a great effort. A woman pushing twins in a stroller and a retarded man who was hugely fat, dressed in a tank top and shorts of jersey material, with bunched up underwear that was totally visible beneath the shorts and a cell phone hooked to his waistband, a big bunch of keys on a black keyring sticking out of the right hand pocket of his shorts both passed by at least 3 times. A man dressed from head to toe in black, with a black hat and a large dog walked past a couple of times. A woman who kept running up and down with at least 3 types of coolers, also wearing black jeans, a print long sleeve shirt and a straw hat (she must have crossed in front of us at least 6 times.)
A woman who started out in a chair in front of me moved to the side of the stage and started dancing halfway through the performance. She was about 75 years old, with black mascara and eyeliner and sinewy but scraggly legs in wedge-heeled sandals, dressed in a tight and short denim skirt and a denim jacket. She was soon joined by another woman belonging to the "black jeans in Southern California in the middle of a heatwave" persuasion, who commenced dancing in an irregular, weaving figure of eight, accompanied by athletic high kicks that looked like she might have had a background in ballet in her younger years. To her credit, she never fell over, and she never stepped on the people who were lying around or sitting right next door to the path. She tossed a mane of dark copper hair to vie with the other woman, whose hair was dyed a yellow blonde. I saw John Waite glance in their direction. I wonder if his career flashed before his eyes and he suddenly felt like retiring? Or maybe that's why he finished out the set with a couple of high energy rock songs--he needed to prove to himself and the rest of us that he wasn't quite a baby boomer, and that the seniors in the audience were there for the free concert, not because he was headlining it.
I thought back to the days I worked in the Physical Therapy department of a nursing home where every Tuesday, a man would come in, play organ and sing old standards slightly off-key. I always thought that if the audience was peopled with baby boomers, they would never tolerate such fodder, and somehow get over to him in their wheelchairs and run over him and his organ. I also had to wonder, and still do, what sort of entertainment will be planned for a generation that was brought up on a diet of Led Zeppelin, the stirring 30 minute intro of "War," and rock in general.
Maybe the heat got to me while I as watching this surge of strange humanity passing by. Maybe they were all attracted by the free concert. I hope and pray they weren't just John Waite fans. Makes me want to run for the hills at the mere thought of it. John would probably be right on my heels.
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