Mr. B's Domain – The Log - Archive

October 03, 2009

Chicago

The better part of this Saturday was uneventful. I was having issues with the sound on my new toy but I eventually got it working. This evening, I went with Mom and Dad to the Gretna Heritage Festival to see Chicago. I’ve been enjoying their first album a lot lately so I was glad to have a chance to see them live.The Gretna Fest was going on since four this afternoon and we didn’t leave the house until around seven. It took quite some time to find a parking space and it was a good distance from the grounds. After parking and a healthy walk we finally made it to the fest. I’ve never been to this particular festival before and I was shocked at the turnout. It looked like 100,000 people were there. We mostly showed for Chicago’s performance so we waded through the crowds and the booths and eventually made it to the main stage on the riverfront as Allen Toussaint was wrapping up. Mom and Dad found a stop on the levee.Allen Toussaint’s set was over I moved up to the front. I brought my camera with me intent on getting some good pictures. When I worked my up to the front, I was dismayed to find people with chairs set up all in the front up to the barricade. Jazz Fest put an end to the practice of confiscating such prime real estate with chairs years ago. I found a cozy spot on the right side behind the first row of chairs, just a couple feet from the barricade. There was about an hour before Chicago’s set started. As I was just standing around waiting, I was dismayed to witness a group of front row squatters arguing with a man who was standing at the rail beside them because he had a prime spot without camping there all afternoon. Overall, the crowd was incredibly healthy. There must have been some 20,000 people there to see the show.The band started nearly on time just after 10 PM. Three of the four founding members of Chicago were there along with some long time members. I do enjoy their early music but I couldn’t have named any of the members before this evening. The performance was awesome and they sounded quite good live. Luckily, they largely played their older stuff which I and a lot of others find preferable to their newer material… to put it mildly.The stage was reasonably well lit most of the time and I was able to take some decent pictures even though my 70-200mm f/4 zoom lens is slow. After the show I met up with Mom and Dad and we walked back to the car. We got home at about midnight. Rather than go to bed like I should have, I stayed up until three culling the 815 pictures I took and uploaded the keepers to the website.

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