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At last – a concert in front of a 100% Donna
crowd! No blasé charity
people, no high rollers waiting to get back to the tables…. Just a
pavilion full of fans! I
got to see a bunch of you there, and I would start naming names….. but
I know I’ll forget somebody so I’ll just settle for saying hi
everybody! A special hi to
Winnie the Pooh and her brother. Usually
I meet strange people in Atlantic City……
this time it was Boston. ;-)
(Although I have to admit, the Pooh costume had to be warmer than
what I was wearing.)
I had a great seat to this show – so great that I
might just have to frame the ticket!
LOL I’ll never get
that good a seat again (unless Donna starts playing casinos that accept
bribes again…) I really
wanted to bring my digital camera, but I thought that the pavilion would
probably confiscate it – as it turned out, despite the heightened
terror alert, they didn’t check anything.
I could have carried in a whole television camera crew and they
wouldn’t have noticed. (Although how I would have fit them in my
little bag is a mystery…..
but I digress. I’m
good at that. ;-)
) I did bring a
cheap disposable camera, and I took a couple of shots that are hopefully
halfway presentable. (I
took a couple shots of the 4 Divos of the night – I spoke to two of
you that night, but if the other two would like a copy of the pictures,
just email me and I’ll send you the file. But until I see the pictures
tomorrow, I honestly don’t know if you will even be recognizable in
them.)
The show was pretty much the same lineup as
Atlantic City – She Works Hard For The Money, Once Upon A Time, I Love
You, Could It Be Magic, MacArthur Park, Smile,
Dim All The Lights, On The Radio, Natural Woman, Bruce’s solo
of Lé Imaginé Café, My Man Medley, Enough Is Enough, Nights In White
Satin, Cold Love, Bad Girls, Hot Stuff and Last Dance.
(Can I just say that I am very happy that This Time I Know It’s
For Real is not in the show this year?
It’s not that I have anything against the song itself, it’s
just that I HATE typing that title and I think if I had to keep typing
it all summer long, I might go completely insane.
LOL)
Now you notice I said “pretty much the same
lineup” – there was one very notable difference.
In light of the tragic bombings in London that morning, Donna
opted to add one unrehearsed song to the show right after Could It Be
Magic. She sang Amazing
Grace, accompanied only by Bruce (oops, no, make that Nathan) on piano and she dedicated it to
London. (If I had a way to beam it out to you, I would have!)
I’ve heard Donna sing that song a number of times, and I swear
she never does it the same way twice.
Last night it was more heartfelt than I have ever heard it
before, and when the song was over she asked us all to remember the
people of London in our prayers. It was just wonderful and I was so glad I was there to hear
it. (I can hear London now, “Prayers are nice, but you know a European
tour would make us feel so much better!”
Forget it guys – we Americans aren’t done with her yet!
LOL)
Now what can I say about the show that hasn’t
been said already? Well for
starters, this was BOSTON! “Enthusiastic”
doesn’t even begin to describe the audience.
Where I was sitting, it was sometimes hard to hear Donna over the
cheers and singing of the audience.
Oops, did I say sitting? There
was very little sitting at that show.
The venue might as well have not even bothered with chairs. : -)
You gotta love a crowd like that!
It meant I could stand anytime I wanted without having to worry
about some (casino) person
behind me tugging on my shirt and saying “please sit down, I can’t
see.” Anytime I stood up – the rest of the place was standing too.
And everyone was so noisy that at one point Donna tried to shush
us a little so she could sing. Talk about a losing battle!
There was no way anybody was gonna stay quiet for long!
LOL
One thing that surprised me was the number of out
of town visitors I ran into. I figured that Veronica and I (coming from
New Jersey and Long Island) would have been the ones who came from
furthest away, but boy was I wrong!
There were people there from Los Angeles, Mexico, the UK, and
Holland – and those are just the ones I know about.
(And I thought I had a long commute.
LOL)
This time I checked out the merchandise table and I
have to say that I like the new shirts.
I bought one there and I have my eye on another that I might grab
at Jones Beach. :- ) But I do have one little quibble. There really needs to be a sweatshirt available too – for
the idiots (okay, I mean me) who are too dumb to dress appropriately for
the weather (despite having grown up near the ocean!) It doesn’t even need to have a picture on it – it
can just say “Too dumb to remember that it gets cold by the water 2005”. LOL
I just about froze my twins off until the pavilion filled up and
collection of people blocked the cold wind.
Oh wait – I have one other little quibble with
the merchandise table – actually with the people running it.
As I stood there pondering which t-shirt was destined to come
home with me, I heard a
person asking one of the staffers about one of the CDs that was being
offered. The person asked
what CD it was, and the staffer said “I don’t know, I think it’s
Donna’s husband’s” Twenty
years of retail experience says that you will sell more copies if you
show a tiny bit more enthusiasm for the product. A better answer would
have been, “That’s Rainy Day Soul by Bruce Sudano. He’ll be
singing tonight too.” And
you don’t even have to remember all that – most of it is written
RIGHT THERE on the CD. (That
was my bitchy rant for the day. LOL)
Now I’m off to get some sleep before my last
stalking venture of the summer. Tomorrow
is Jones Beach and I hope my fellow Long Islanders are ready to be
rowdy. We need to make
Boston and Wolf Trap look
like they were sleeping through their shows!
;-)
- Cathy, from the
Long Island Home for Insane Webmasters ;-)
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