Concert-Going after 40: I Survived the Bocelli Concert in Central Park

I was one of the 60,000 fans who braved the long lines, pounding rain, and the precipitous 30-degree drop in temperature to attend the free Andrea Bocelli concert last night on the Great Lawn of Central Park. It turned out to be one of those unforgettable New York moments when adversity is overcome and the human spirit soars.

Although tickets for the 9/15/11 concert were free, snagging one wasn't easy. Last June, Team Bocelli sent out an engaging email, speaking of the Italian tenor's love for the great park, which read (in part):

In those rare moments of respite between one concert and another, between an interview and a photo call, between a TV appearance and a working lunch, I like to leave the hotel and make my way on foot to Central Park: the lungs, the oasis, the heart of the city, where you can leave behind the rumble of millions of engines running, that deep and in some way disturbing voice of the metropolis. There at last you can find peace and quiet, a more human dimension, which is closer to your origins and mine. This is where people come to regenerate.

Bocelli and Me

Celine Dion once said, "If God had a voice, it would sound like Andrea Bocelli." So it shouldn't be surprising that this email had me hooked, especially after the brutal summer we New Yorkers had recently endured: The raw pain of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the elevated terror threat that accompanied it, and the slam-bang of Hurricane Irene.

I became a Bocelli groupie (and a groupie for the first time ever) when I fell in love from afar with the voice of this handsome Italian, trained as a lawyer, annointed by Pavorotti, who rides horses on the beaches of Tuscany despite being blind since a childhood soccer accident.

I paid big bucks to attend Bocelli concerts at Madison Square Garden, the Nassau Coliseum, and the Meadowlands and in Bridgeport and Albany. I joined one of the first chat rooms that announced the birth of his second son, his divorce from his first wife, the death of his father, that his brother Alberto had started bottling wine, and the one with the unforgettable subject line that read, HE CUT HIS HAIR (as a show of support for the soccer player Renaldo). Then there was a long hiatus, probably about five years or so, when I opted to watch his concerts on public television in the comfort of my home or to hear the thrill of him sing on Barilla commercials.

Outward Bound

In mid-August, the downloadable electronic tickets I requested magically appeared in my in-box. There were no assigned seats; the lucky ones were simply instructed that there would only be two ways to access the park, one entrance on the east side of 72^nd Street and another on the west. Sounded easy.

Unfortunately, at 6PM the line on the west side began on 59^th Street, winding its way around the south side of Central Park for as far as one could see. People seemed appropriately attired, or suited up, for the crawl. Some were in rain gear with contraband umbrellas; others were plastic bag people, covered in hefty-duty black trash or clear plastic ones.

The hot-dog vendors at each street corner were tempting but I lusted after the cut-up pineapple and sushi the people in front of me were eating with chopsticks. Anyone who hadn't planned ahead certainly had sufficient time to run to Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center and return. Everyone had cell phones in hand, tweeting the experience, phoning a friend they had agreed to meet "at the entrance," or telling the tale to people back home. "Yes, it's still on," chatted the chorus.

It was about an hour before we finally reached the 72nd Street entrance but everyone was in good humor when we met up with New York's finest, NYPD officers assigned to the event. When we reached the gate, we thought we had arrived; we were ushered like cattle through wide barricades amongst throngs of people and a sea of umbrellas. As darkness set in, we didn't know exactly where we were or where we were headed. We just kept walking.

Our tickets were scanned at a checkpoint midway and we finally saw a glimpse of one of the acoustic shell and several Jumbotrons. We walked some more until there were no more paths to follow. As a final challenge, we had to step over picnicking people sitting on tarps, blankets and towels who looked like they had staked their spaces hours before us on the wet grass. Without light, we had to avoid the landmines of extended legs and pocketbooks beneath our feet. 

Music in the Air

We finally found a spot. "Sit down," someone screamed. "Sit, sit, sit," chanted the crowd. Then the words were quickly translated into Spanish for those who didn't respond. "The selfish people aren't from New York," yelled someone else in English. Even if they had to sit in the mud, everyone got the message.

The evening did not disappoint. Andrea was dressed in white, cleanly shaven, his hair salt-and-peppered, and looking a bit more mature than I had last seen him. His voice was still spellbinding. Accompanied by Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic, he sang classics and pop in English and Italian. David Foster, Chris Botti, and Anna Maria Martinez came on stage to perform with him as people in the audience tweeted that Alec Baldwin, Kim Kardashian, Ivanka Trump, and Sting were among the crowd.

Two miraculous duets were so powerful that they stopped the rain and stilled the excited crowd: The Prayer (sung with his surprise guest, Celine Dion), and New York, New York (sung with the legendary Tony Bennett). Renditions of Amazing Grace and Nessun Dorma turned up the heat for the Bocelli flock shivering in the cold.

The show went on undaunted by foul weather, a perfect antidote for jaded New Yorkers after several trying weeks during a trying season for our country. It proved that even those of  "Woodstock age" still aren't too old for once-in-a-lifetime concerts. If you missed this opportunity, you can tune in to the PBS broadcast of the concert on December 2, 2011. 

* See an exclusive interview with Andrea Bocelli speaking about the concert.