Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Celebration Part I

RB2 first saw Chris Rea www.chrisrea.com in Cape Town and then a few years later in Rotterdam. He introduced me to him in 1990 at a concert in Lausanne. When we saw he had a Zurich stop on his last tour, we grabbed tickets even if it was a three-hour train ride.

The concert hall was a stand-up only. The first place we found we had no view of the performers but the instrumentals were so great I only half minded. It has been a long-time since I was at a stand-up only concert and I’d forgotten smoking was allowed in the hall. What was new was all the people with their cell phones pointed at the stage recording the concert.

RB2 touched my shoulder and beckoned me. He had gone on reconnaissance and found a wonderful hidey hole in back of the in-hall bar.

Rea is not that well known in the States. He is a rock-blue-jazz gravely-voiced singer, song-writer with tremendous performance on guitar, banjo and harmonica. I’d always liked his lyrics but you felt the music and the advantage of standing was you could dance. In fact not moving would have been impossible.
Towards the end of the concert RB2 asked if I wanted a champagne. Is the Pope German? As we clunked our plastic flutes together he said, “You should have something to celebrate every day.”

The concert was a good thing to celebrate.

1 comment:

bb said...

Checked the link. A little to post-modern for my taste. And I say that with full knowledge of the irony.