(I meant to post this soon after the concert, but with a couple of pastoral emergencies in my congregation, all the details of the Christmas Eve service to take care of, and preparing for the Holiday Open House Party Big Man and I were throwing for the church and family, I ended up without a free 5 minutes to string thoughts together until right now.)
Sunday night, December 21, 2008
Along with about 998 of Aaron Neville's biggest fans, Big Man and I squeezed ourselves into the House of Blues Sunday night for a rare live concert. "Standing room only" does not do justice to the size of the enthusiastic crowd -- it was like Mardi Gras, or one of the big stages at Jazz Fest, folks were packed together so close that when you raised your arm to take a sip of your drink, you perforce brushed against another person, or possibly several. Until the concert began, you could clearly hear every word of conversations said in a normal tone of voice by the people immediately around you. Enforced intimacy.
Normally, I'd say I've outgrown this sort of thing. At my age and stage of decrepitude, I need more personal space and the occasional chair or bar stool to drop into to rest my poor busted-never-to-properly-heal left ankle. But this was AARON, who's performed about 3 times in the city since Katrina, and we had (or thought we had) free tickets from 'OZ, and I wouldn't have missed this for the world. So I strapped on a serious ankle brace, gritted my teeth, and went.
Turned out there was some kind of snafu between House of Blues and WWOZ about those free tickets. Somehow, word didn't get from the station to HOB, and we were not the only disappointed couple in the box office area. The girl behind the ticket window showed me that my name didn't appear on her comp list, and told me that House of Blues had not heard *anything* from WWOZ, and that the concert (of course!) was totally sold out. We trudged back to the car, and I phoned the station from the warmth. (One of the reasons I won the tickets in the first place is because I have 'OZ programmed into my cell phone. What? You mean *you* don't??) The harried volunteer alone at the station that night for her shift on the air knew from nothing, and couldn't help me; she said she had already said as much to the first couple who called. I was disappointed, and a little mad at 'OZ, but I was undeterred. There had to be a way.
I sat in the car and thought, and then rallied Big Man back to the box office. I spoke again to the girl at the window, telling her I was sure it would all be straightened out on Monday morning, so how about letting us in, getting our contact info as a kind of surety? She explained again that the show was not only sold out, but there was a capacity issue (like someone had called the Fire Marshall maybe?). I asked to speak to a Manager, and she said he was on the phone with the Marketing department, trying to straighten this all out, and I said we'd wait. When he came to the window, he was somewhat apologetic, and seemingly wanted to head off any tears on my part. (Believe you me, I certainly was ready to cry.) He said he was waiting to hear from the head of Marketing about our tickets, and invited us to stand near the box office.
Big Man was dubious about the whole thing, but he agreed to wait (glowering like a bear). A short while later, a reporter came by and got his free tickets for the concert, and noticed us there. We briefly recapped our situation, and he said, "Well, I've got 2 and only need one, so take this, and then you'll only need one more." We thanked him profusely. One down, one to go. We continued to wait. Another guy came by, and picked up his will-call tickets. He also noted our forlorn presence, and asked if we were waiting for tickets. We went over what had happened as quickly as we could, and he said, "I've paid for 2, but only need one -- I'll sell you one for $20, even though they cost me $35, plus the Ticketmaster charge." We hastily agreed to that, and walked to the front door with 2 tickets clutched in our hands. I tried to think of plausible circumstances where a man could ask a date to go to Aaron's Christmas concert and the date would not show. Bad break-up? Surely the other person would've waited til after the concert. Maybe they were coming in from out of town and got snowed in? That seemed more likely.
On our way in the door, we bumped (almost literally) into Jason Neville, Aaron's son, all dressed up. Jason greeted Eric and they exchanged a few words. (Big Man has worked with Jason on Russell Batiste gigs.) We then pushed our way (quite literally) into the concert room at House of Blues. Big Man bought us drinks, and we wound our way to a patch of floor that had good sight lines and could *almost* fit us. (Like I say, enforced intimacy with strangers.) The room buzzed with anticipation.
Around 8:40 pm, the musicians came onstage, Charles and Aaron, a drummer, a bassist, a keyboard, and another one of those totally amazing Japanese guitarists that New Orleans seems chock-full of. Aaron was in a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans and sported a backwards Saints cap. He looked buff as usual, but his face seemed to have new lines, indicators of pain, maybe. As the crowd just screamed and screamed their welcome, Aaron stepped to the mike and said quietly, "For Joel," and the band swung into something like a retrospective of Aaron's solo career, beautifully arranged, astoundingly well played by the musicians, and Aaron's voice a gift of tenderness, passion, and sadness. I wasn't the only one there wiping away tears.
There were Neville Brothers hits, done Aaron's way, and new covers I hadn't heard before. Charles had some absolutely amazing solos, especially the trading off between him and the Japanese guitarist on "Yellow Moon." (Charles also did a knock-your-socks-off version of "Besame Mucho," a favorite for both Big Man and me.) That guitarist was so tremendous, in fact, that a couple of times, Aaron was moved to do air guitar -- something I had never seen him do in all the years I've been his avid fan. They did a group of Christmas songs, with the audience singing along on the chorus of "Let It Snow." Artie came out, moving slowly and with the aid of stagehands, to play keys and sing on a few numbers, the brothers grinning at each other. (Charles seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood, smiling wide, and at one point, so gracefully signing song lyrics in ASL that it looked like dancing.)
Then Artie left and Jason came on, and Big Man and I hollered his name, delighted to see him up there with his dad. (Jason's behavior and substance abuse had caused a rift between them in the past, and Aaron's calling him up to the stage that night seemed a validation if not a reconciliation.) They did a killer version of Bill Withers' "Use Me" (Aaron *loves* Bill Withers), and we hollered some more. A young couple near us was like, "Who is that guy?" and we were glad to fill them in that Jason was Aaron's son. We were so proud, you'd've thought that *we* were related.
Aaron did "Sarah Smile" in a particularly soulful and emotional way (we learned later from the Times-Picayune that Aaron is now engaged to famous New York music and sports-figure photographer Sarah A. Friedman, and all I can say is, she better damn well make him happy, and be happy living with him where he belongs, in New Orleans). He did "Ariane" which I hadn't heard him do in years and years, by that time I'm pretty sure all the women in the audience were melting into little pools of Aaron-adoration. (I know I was.)
Then it was over, and the crowd went nuts, screaming and stomping and pounding our hands together til the palms were tingly and bright red. We waved our hands in the air, making the ASL sign for "I love you" and hollered "We love you!" for good measure. They left the stage (doing the necessaries, getting bottles of water, whatever) and then came back out, to more screams, whistles, clapping, stomping, and so on. Aaron sang "Amazing Grace" and it was better than church and then "Good night" and then, for kicks, just like the Brothers used to do to end a night at Tipitina's back in the day, they sang a goofily soulful "Mickey Mouse Club Theme." More screaming, pounding, stamping of feet, waving of hands, and the night was over.
Big Man and I talked about our favorite bits all the way home, and in the days that followed. A wonderfully memorable night, that we'll always remember and treasure. One of our best Christmas gifts.
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