Cultural Event #16

Seu Jorge (and Amadou & Mariam) at Millennium Park



My first big free outdoors concert – it was wonderful! In case you guys haven’t been to Millennium Park, it has a great amphitheater with superb acoustics (even though it’s outdoors) – it looks like a giant crashed spaceship. I showed up an hour early with a suitcase full of booze, and got a spot on the grass pretty close to the stage (there are some seats, but sitting on the grass is more fun). Most of the time we were gabbing and goofing off, it’s a noisy crowd and not a place to sit and listen quietly - more of a drunken intergenerational party, really. The variety of people at that concert was staggering, and once again I was overjoyed that I live in such a diverse city. The majority of the crowd looked like they could be extras in a 70s film (I’m liking that these styles are back though – keep in mind that most people in Chicago aren’t going to the extremes that New Yorkers are when it comes to fashion, thank god). I did see one girl whose jean cuffs were the biggest cuffs ever. They were almost normal-length jeans, but the entire portion from her knees to ankles were cuffs. Good job girl – you win the Biggest Cuffs prize. Now go change into some jeans that you can actually wear for more than one season.

We ran into Kelly’s hyper friend Will, who put on a Charlie Chaplinesque show with a folding chair, pretending that he couldn’t get it open, to the amusement of various onlookers. In the middle of his little routine, he smacked himself across the bridge of his nose as hard as he possibly could with the chair (that wasn’t part of his original plan, I suspect). Then after a few more spastic remarks, he disappeared into the night. I love the way that every time I’m in a crowd of thousands of people, I somehow run into somebody I know.

The music was good – Seu Jorge did only two Bowie covers (Rebel Rebel and Ziggy Stardust). I couldn’t pay close enough attention to the music to say much about it – but it was all perfect, happy, dancing summer music. We were mainly there for the atmosphere, the drinking, the warm summer night, and the happy crowd.