- By guest contributor, Farah Diba Stith -
 |
| NJPAC after departure of the packed audience |
The “Queen of Soul” was in New Jersey
this past Saturday evening and I was lucky enough to see her in concert! My BFF
planned the evening and I was along for the ride which was first class all the
way.
Aretha Franklin was at the New Jersey
Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey at the invitation of Mayor Corey
Booker, or so he told us in his introduction of the Queen. Funny, but she
didn’t grace us with her presence for another 20 minutes after the Mayor's
exuberant introduction. Early into her
concert Aretha thanked Mayor Booker but he was gone! She speculated maybe he
went to the men’s room. Another time she asked for him, she had a special song
picked out for him. She put her hands above her eyes looking out into the crowd
for the missing Mayor. He wasn’t there. Yet another time she asked for him and
finally we all knew he had gone. Wow, not good at all! I think Mr. Booker wanted to introduce her for
political reasons.
While we waited on Aretha to come on
stage I mentioned to my bestie that I have always been a fan of Aretha. She was
the reason I took piano lessons when I was a child. I wanted to play and sing
at the piano just like Aretha. As we waited some of the audience called out her
name. Even my bestie was a bit anxious, commenting that she had seen
“Daughtry”, “Blood, Sweat and Tears”, “Ra Kim” and “Tina Turner" perform at the
PAC and each started on time. I responded that none of them could hold a candle
to Aretha, well maybe Tina can, but we should count ourselves lucky to be
waiting on the Queen! Yes, I’ll wait. I was glad to wait; at least I wasn’t
sitting up in my room (the old Brandy song from the movie, “Waiting to Exhale”)
I was sitting in the NJ PAC concert hall waiting on Aretha. I was a lucky girl
and my bestie agreed.
About 7:20 pm the real introduction
began. That booming voice announced “ladies and gentlemen…” and went on to
state the awards Aretha had won, the accolades she had received and then from
the corner of the curtain a silvery figure appeared, moving to the music while
stepping out onto the stage, finally Aretha, the Queen of Soul, was in our
presence! She looked good. She sounded even better. Her voice is strong and
true, riffing and lilting and booming where necessary. The orchestra was unbelievable.
It was real music and a real performer on a Saturday night. In the very
beginning the sound wasn’t that great, something was off. Aretha noticed it too
and asked her conductor to move one of the speakers in front of her - "up and to
the left". He did and then he went to move another one and she said, “No that’s ok.” Then she
sang again and it was all better! I’m sure we all appreciated her attention to
detail.
She wore a long silvery gown,
sleeveless, and 2 or 3 inch silver heels. Our seats were second floor balcony,
to the right of the stage and Aretha was maybe 150 feet away. We could see her
entering and exiting the stage. They were
excellent seats, except for the slide show presentation of Whitney Houston
photos shown when Aretha took a seat at the piano and played a tribute to
Whitney. She sang Whitney’s hit from the
movie, The Body Guard, “I Will Always Love You” written by another favorite of
mine, Dolly Parton. We ran from our seats over to the left of the balcony,
hopping over the hand rail hoping to get a better view of the slide show. The
folks sitting there were very gracious and waved their hands to come on over
and get a better view. The audience was full of Aretha lovers, we were
all family.
Aretha sang many songs, including “Call
Me the Moment You Get There”, “Hey Baby Let’s Get Away”, and “A Natural Woman”.
And Aretha told a joke, about a couple that had a bad dog. It always found its way back home after the
owners had tried to lose it by driving and leaving it out of town. It was a
funny joke! I felt as if Aretha was telling just me that joke.
Oh, and we got to sing “Happy
Birthday” to Aretha! She is 71 if you read the recent Record article about her
visit here. The orchestra played a few chords of “Happy Birthday” and a man
from the audience gave her a bouquet of yellow flowers and her conductor presented
her with a huge bunch of flowers. The announcer told us she was here in New
Jersey during her birthday and the orchestra played both the standard “Happy
Birthday” and Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday to Ya”. We sang both. That was
fun!
She left the stage three times and
she never made a wardrobe change. The first time was a short intermission. The
second time was the beginning of her final exit; she went behind the curtain
where there were a few people, men I saw, waiting with drinks, a towel and a
shawl to put around her shoulders. At this time she chose to take her shoes off to come back on stage and sing some more. Her final song was “Respect”. The
crowd sang along and she encouraged it. Finally, Aretha said goodbye. I thought
if we clapped long enough she might come back again but then the backup singers
got up to go and I knew it was over. Aretha was done. It was 9:00 pm and while
we thought that it was a bit early to stop I knew we had been sitting down
while Aretha had been standing, for the most part, singing and performing. It
was time to stop; I mean she is in her 70’s! I don’t think there are many 70+ year olds that can do what she does for an hour and a half or many 50 year olds
either. Wink, wink.
Afterwards my friend and I took a
seat at the PAC’s bar, “nico”, and drank pinot grigio and ate margarita pizza.
We ended the night a little toasty, which is a good way to end a night out on
the town spent with your bestie and the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. (BFF’s husband was our designated driver,
whew!)
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"Thank you, my daughter, for this 'fun' post."
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