Aaron Neville @ Summer Pops

Aaron Neville and his Quintet, featuring saxman Charles Neville—another San Diego Symphony Summer Pops concert on the Embarcadero (love that word!) South--another "thank you" to videographers Pat and Lea Ann of WalkerVision Interarts—Saturday evening Melissa was on camera stage left—hi, Melissa, and a huge thank you again, everyone!!!

For a short first "half" of the concert, the orchestra played Mississippi Suite by Ferde Grofé; in my continuing compulsion to store stuff on blogs, I'll mention the suite is in four movements: Father of the Waters; Huckleberry Finn; Old Creole Days and Mardi Gras. The orchestra sounded brilliant and conductor Matthew Garbutt is so fun—he conducted the first movement from memory, then Carol, his wife and the librarian, brought the score to him. The orchestra's second piece was a New Orleans Medley, arranged by Richard Hayman.

Aaron opened with Ben E. King's

Stand By Me

When the night has come
And the land is dark,
And the moon is the only light we'll see.
No I won't be afraid,
Oh I won't be afraid,
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

So darlin' darlin' stand by me,
Oh stand by me,
Oh stand, stand by me, stand by me.

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall,
Or the mountain should crumble to the sea.
I won't cry, I won't cry,
No I won't shed a tear,
Just as long as you stand, stand by me.

And darlin' darlin' stand by me,
Oh stand by me,
Whoa stand now, stand by me, stand by me.

Darlin' darlin' stand by me,
Oh stand by me,
Oh stand now, stand by me, stand by me.

Whenever you're in trouble just stand by me,
Oh stand by me,
Whoa stand now, oh stand, stand by me.

After almost dancing my feet off at the end of the Classical Mystery Tour eight days earlier (I'll post that blog soon), my mood was far more subdued and reflective as I listened to Aaron and his band. I've been writing and teaching so much about the cross; Aaron wore two cross bracelets, a cross necklace plus several cross tattoos, and is at least as gracious and elegant live as he is on television and recordings. The concert brought so many, too many memories of living with Motown, blues, funk, jazz, soul and rap, of trusting songs like the 5 Stairsteps' Ooh Child:

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier, Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter, things are gonna get easier, things'll be brighter—Some day, we'll put it together and we'll get it all done; Some day, when your head is much lighter; Some day, we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun; Some day, when the world is much brighter...

I still usually get choked up when hear that song!

Earlier this evening, I blogged about a very recent book, Anne Lamott's Grace (Eventually), and writing about Saturday evening's concert and quoting a favorite song from the past seems a perfect segue. To finish this blog, I'll link to Fireworks America, who provided the closing pyrotechnics and to a couple of sponsors: the Unified Port of San Diego (a cool concept) and Sycuan Band of Kumeyaay Indians, a wonderful and living reality. I couldn't discover a link for Barefoot Wine, our servers (including the glass of champagne the exclusive folks at the tables got), but I wanted to mention them.