Last Weekend for August 10-12: Two Nights on the Lawn
It was a good weekend for outdoor concerts on the lawn, and in both cases the weather was near flawless.
On Friday night I returned to Cain Park for the third time this year. This time it was to knock Joan Osborne off my personal bucket list. She joined that list back in 2002 when she appeared in the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown performing the vocals for What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? That rendition of that song is still a personal favorite, but sadly she has only rarely come to Cleveland since, and those few appearances were either too expensive or poorly timed. As such, I snapped up a ticket for this as soon as I knew about it. Unfortunately, the friends I was supposed to go with ended up being sick and having sick kids. Worse, the concert didn't sell well and the lawn barely had anyone else on it compared to my visits last month.
First though, I had to get through the openers. First up was local Diane Chittester, who had some loyal fans in the venue and put on a decent set of solo acoustic guitar. It wasn't bad at all. After her was Lisa Loeb. While I certainly know a few of her songs, I wasn't expecting to know virtually all of them. The only the ones I didn't know were some of the songs from her recent children's albums, and I liked those just fine. She brought out Renee Stahl to help her on some of the kids songs. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the whole set.
Joan then came out with a trio (her, keyboardist, guitar). She played right up until curfew, and although her overall set might have been shorter than Lisa's, I liked it. She played several songs fromm her recent album of Bob Dylan covers and hit several old blues standards. No Motown, alas, but it probably wouldn't have worked with just a trio anyway. She did go back and dwell on the Relish album for a few songs, including of course One of Us. All in all, it was a solid set. I'd consider seeing her again, preferably when she had time to play more.
On Sunday morning I successfully donated platelets for the eighth time this year. After two consecutive failures due to low iron, that was a bit of a relief. Interestingly, my platelets apparently are a "more than just blood type" match for someone, because they had gotten an email saying "We see that cynic51 is donating platelets on Sunday can you please reserve them for us?" That's never happened before to my knowledge, and my B+ blood type isn't so uncommon that they'd call me out by name.
While donating I started and finished How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and The Fight for the Neighborhood by Peter Moskowitz. Unsurprisingly, it's the sort of book that can make you angry, and equally unsurprising a lot of the original causes of gentrification boil down to historic racism. It offered a few possible ways to mitigate the impact of gentrification on the poor, but most boiled down to "people have to care enough to oppose the money", which mostly we don't.
Sunday afternoon I did a fun little radio show then hurried home. M and I and rshruti and her husband carpooled down to Blossom together to see Yo-Yo Ma perform Bach's Cello Suites. We had a delightful picnic on the lawn during this show, with plenty of cheese and other delicious treats. Upon reflection, Ma's performance was the largest single crowd I have ever seen for a solo performer; the pavilion was sold out and the lawn was packed. They saw a heck of a show. It might not have been quite as good as when I saw him with Kathryn Stott, but it was still a solid show of the year candidate, even if the little kids in front of us lost interest somewhere along the third cello suite. He also did a fun encore honoring Pablo Casals, who popularized performing the Bach cello suites.
On Friday night I returned to Cain Park for the third time this year. This time it was to knock Joan Osborne off my personal bucket list. She joined that list back in 2002 when she appeared in the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown performing the vocals for What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? That rendition of that song is still a personal favorite, but sadly she has only rarely come to Cleveland since, and those few appearances were either too expensive or poorly timed. As such, I snapped up a ticket for this as soon as I knew about it. Unfortunately, the friends I was supposed to go with ended up being sick and having sick kids. Worse, the concert didn't sell well and the lawn barely had anyone else on it compared to my visits last month.
First though, I had to get through the openers. First up was local Diane Chittester, who had some loyal fans in the venue and put on a decent set of solo acoustic guitar. It wasn't bad at all. After her was Lisa Loeb. While I certainly know a few of her songs, I wasn't expecting to know virtually all of them. The only the ones I didn't know were some of the songs from her recent children's albums, and I liked those just fine. She brought out Renee Stahl to help her on some of the kids songs. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the whole set.
Joan then came out with a trio (her, keyboardist, guitar). She played right up until curfew, and although her overall set might have been shorter than Lisa's, I liked it. She played several songs fromm her recent album of Bob Dylan covers and hit several old blues standards. No Motown, alas, but it probably wouldn't have worked with just a trio anyway. She did go back and dwell on the Relish album for a few songs, including of course One of Us. All in all, it was a solid set. I'd consider seeing her again, preferably when she had time to play more.
On Sunday morning I successfully donated platelets for the eighth time this year. After two consecutive failures due to low iron, that was a bit of a relief. Interestingly, my platelets apparently are a "more than just blood type" match for someone, because they had gotten an email saying "We see that cynic51 is donating platelets on Sunday can you please reserve them for us?" That's never happened before to my knowledge, and my B+ blood type isn't so uncommon that they'd call me out by name.
While donating I started and finished How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and The Fight for the Neighborhood by Peter Moskowitz. Unsurprisingly, it's the sort of book that can make you angry, and equally unsurprising a lot of the original causes of gentrification boil down to historic racism. It offered a few possible ways to mitigate the impact of gentrification on the poor, but most boiled down to "people have to care enough to oppose the money", which mostly we don't.
Sunday afternoon I did a fun little radio show then hurried home. M and I and rshruti and her husband carpooled down to Blossom together to see Yo-Yo Ma perform Bach's Cello Suites. We had a delightful picnic on the lawn during this show, with plenty of cheese and other delicious treats. Upon reflection, Ma's performance was the largest single crowd I have ever seen for a solo performer; the pavilion was sold out and the lawn was packed. They saw a heck of a show. It might not have been quite as good as when I saw him with Kathryn Stott, but it was still a solid show of the year candidate, even if the little kids in front of us lost interest somewhere along the third cello suite. He also did a fun encore honoring Pablo Casals, who popularized performing the Bach cello suites.