Last Thursday I stood in line at 10:00am along 59th street near Fifth Avenue with throngs of Sting fans. I have never been a huge Sting fan and only know him for the few Police songs that are burned into my brain from college frat parties. But a friend of mine from work is a fanatic, and she needed someone to share the experience of jumping up and down, screaming and clapping on cue for his free outdoor concert taped for the Early Show on CBS. I didn't watch the show the next day, but apparently I was on television for a tenth of a second if you watched with a high powered telescope.
Mary, my friend, said that I was the perfect person to bring to this event, which I wasn't sure to take as a compliment or an insult. My brief impressions of Sting , from a very close spot near the stage, were that he still has a good voice, that despite being 58 years old he makes everyone around him look totally uncool, and that his real fans are the ones that have been singing the words to 'Roxanne' since 1978. As far as musical revelations go, there were none, other than the fact that a good back up orchestra can make even a mediocre song sound like a symphony.
On that same evening, I went to Lincoln center to meet my mother, step-father, sister and niece for dinner and dancing at the Midsummer Night Swing outdoor dance festival. Midsummer Night Swing is a unique experience that can only be described as New York at its most ridiculous and joyful. Hundreds of people come out to Damrosch Park behind the New York State Theater to dance to live music of a different genre every night for three weeks.
The night we were there it was "Disco." Donna Summer and the Bee Gees were well represented, as were a full range of ages and dance abilities. One elderly gentleman in his 80s managed to swing more dance partners around the floor than other men half his age, and the girls he danced with couldn't stop smiling. Some of the couples clearly practiced before they came, but other people just grabbed whoever was willing and made up the moves as they went along. It's free if you remain outside the inner dance area, and $17 if you want to dance closer to the live music. Most people just dance wherever they are standing, with whomever they lay eyes on.
The only one who wasn't having a blast was my 20-year-old niece. She just couldn't get into the 70's music. She left to meet some friends at a bar. My sister and I paid our tributes to Donna Summer by dancing together to "I Will Survive," and then we made our way out past the crowds and the glittering fountain to find our own drinks and shared memories.
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