The Stevie Wonder experience

Dateline: June 30th, 2009.

I get off the metro at Place Des Arts station (heading back from work) at about 4:45. The concert is right next to the exit; it's already damn crowded. I learn by phone call that Mick (bassist in my band) and a couple other friends are already there, and that they've managed to squeeze up front. I run home, relax for five or ten minutes, grab a couple slices of pizza, and make my way back to the concert. By this point (around 5:30), it's gotten even more packed. I somehow tiptoe my way over people who insist on bringing a blanket and taking up way too much room, squeeze past several very angry-looking folks, and get about ten feet from my friends before I'm stopped by a man who was, in my father's terminology, built like a brick shithouse. The guy looks me over, and, after my fervent exclamations that my friends were waiting for me just over there (and their frantic waves towards us), he let me pass, but with the warning that "this door is now SHUT."

Perhaps I should give some perspective as to where we were in relation to the stage:



And what the crowd looked like behind us:



Or maybe both in one go:



By the way, what look like gaps in the crowd in that video are actually spots where people were sitting down. These folks were actually much harder to get through than those who were merely standing. There were no gaps. We could barely find room to put our backpacks down on the ground. I think by the time the show started there were somewhere around 200,000 people there. This is all an attempt to impress upon my readers how much I suffered for Stevie.

Then three and a half hours passed. I can't say it was a fun three and a half hours, but it probably wasn't the worst three and a half hours of my life. I had friends there, and although I couldn't really move, could barely sit down, didn't have any water, and couldn't actually leave to go to the bathroom--Mick made the brave journey out through the crowd to the outhouses and somehow struggled all the way back to the front, meeting one kind fellow who threatened to "cut his foot" if he tried to get by again--we still had friendship and the distant prospect of a FREAKIN' STEVIE WONDER CONCERT FROM THE FRONT ROW, which made it all almost enjoyable. That's a big almost. We also met a few friends of mine who also happened to be up in the front row, and a motley cast of characters including the drunk/high guido-esque folk standing next to us and a girl who claimed to be a model and to have been "seen with the Wayans brothers" in one of the more incomprehensible celebrity name-drops ever. Still, props for her, I guess.

Oh yeah, and it started raining.


Finally, at around 9:15, as my bladder threatened to burst, the DJ left, the stage cleared, the lights went into performance mode, a roar went up from the crowd...and then this guy showed up on the video monitors to talk about how wonderful the jazz festival was for about 10 minutes.



Then he shuts up and goes away, and a figure makes his way onto the stage. STEEEEVIE!

..wait, nope. These guys.



They talked about how awesome Jazz Fest was for another 10 minutes. Then they left, and we waited. And waited. And waited some more. It was probably only about 20 minutes, but as the model/Wayans brothers associate noted, it felt longer than the other four hours.

And then this shmuck came out.



Oh wait.

I can't quite describe how odd it is to see someone you consider a musical genius and one of the greatest artists of the past 50 years standing no more than 50 feet away from you looking for all the world like a pudgy older middle-aged guy. It's not that I didn't know what he looked like, but it's more that. He's human. He's an actual guy who, you know, does all those human things we do. He just happens to be Stevie Wonder. Music is a strange art, because in no other is it as easy to become so acquainted with the most intimate details of another person without having the slightest clues about the normal stuff. The visual arts aren't as direct a window into the psyche or soul (yeah, argue this point if you want) and although a movie star might be equally as distant, at least you're looking at their face and body as it occupies physical space--and plus, they're playing someone else. Stevie Wonder has always been a disembodied voice and some musical notes to me (plus photos, and a few videos, but much less so), yet I feel you know so much about him. Seeing him there in the flesh--yes, he actually does the head-bob-y thing--almost, in a strange way, stole a tiny bit of the magic. Almost. Maybe it would have if he hadn't kicked ridiculous amounts of ass.

He started off with a speech about the late great Michael Jackson, basically telling the haters and the myriad vultures around his corpse to go get stuffed. He started the concert off with "I Can't Help It," a tune he wrote for MJ which, I have to confess, I had never heard before. He was obviously pretty shaken up over his death, which is not surprising given their friendship. He actually stopped several times during the show to play MJ songs over the speakers. I understand the tribute, but I wished he'd actually played them.

The show continued in a somewhat disjointed fashion. His first hour or so was light on any huge hits and a bit too heavy on some post-1980 stuff, which I tend to pretend never happened. There were a few pretty amazing performances, though: "Master Blaster" was amazing, especially after having covered it with my band, "Higher Ground" was everything you could hope for, and "Knocks Me Off My Feet" was gorgeous. There was also a cool Indian/Middle-Eastern sounding singalong thing that was quite possibly improvised. The lyrics certainly were. As cool as it was, a couple things need to be said. One, Stevie, do us all a favor and never try to freestyle lyrics again. Stevie is musically unquestionable yet has always been a wee bit shaky lyrically. Second, never try and get a huge crowd to sing a minor second. It doesn't work.

There were also a few cool surprises:


I should stop here and say that his voice has apparently not aged in 25 years. During the big Middle-Eastern singalong, I was totally blown away by the precision and power in his tone. He sounded like a muted trumpet.

Then things got really cool. In honor of Jazz Fest, he decided to do some, well, Jazz. Miles Davis' "All Blues" was first, in which Stevie took the most badass harmonica solo ever.



Then they did Coltrane's "Giant Steps" for a bit, before launching into a truly epic version of Chick Corea's "Spain" that lasted for a good fifteen minutes or more, with each member of his rather sizeable band taking a solo. What a band, man, what a band. The two guitarists and two keyboardists were amazing, the bass player was a rock, and the two percussionists and the horn players were jaw-dropping. The drummer, though, was something else. The man sounded like a bombing run when he got going fast, and he was hitting the damn things so hard I thought they would snap--yet he was perfectly precise and never over-the-top. I guess that's who you get as a drummer when you're Stevie Wonder.

Then he did "Our Love is Here to Stay."

After the sick jamzzz, things got going, really going. "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing," "Uptight," "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," "For Once in My Life"...plus "I'm Gonna Laugh You Out of My Life," a Nancy Wilson song sung by his daughter Aisha, who is one of his backup singers and was the subject of "Isn't She Lovely." And who has an astoundingly beautiful voice.

Then, after the obligatory but still midly cringe-inducing "I Just Called to Say I Love You," we got this:



If you can't tell, that drumbeat at the end is the start of "Superstition." I had to put the camera down because I needed to dance, because it's fucking "Superstition." Then he did "As." AHHHHHHHHH.

The only problem, the ONLY problem...I wish he'd actually done the full versions of those three songs in the video. That's a minor complaint because I WAS 50 FEET AWAY FROM STEVIE WONDER SINGING "SIR DUKE," "I WISH," "ISN'T SHE LOVELY," "SUPERSTITION," AND "AS."

He ended the show by having a bunch of MJ songs played over the loudspeakers while he stood onstage and held hands with his band. Mick and I took the opportunity to leave--not because we wanted to disrespect MJ but because we didn't like the idea of trying to get out of a plaza at the same time 200,000 other people were trying the same thing.

Then there were fireworks.



Legs feeling like they were composed of a metal near the end of the periodic table, bladder now adapted to its distended state, and mind and ears full of music and the unflinchingly positive energy that is Stevie Wonder, we staggered home.

What a night.

The full setlist can be found here, if you're curious.