Saturday night, Chuck and I joined Judie Toti and her husband Norm for a night at the Symphony to see The Boston Pops. This is actually our second visit to Symphony Hall together, the first time to see Bernadette Peters, which he agreed was "magnificent."
That's one of the things I love about Chuck. He'll go see Bernadette Peters with me and love it. He raved about Mama Mia. He adored Rod Stewart. He's got a chick side to him that I can totally date, although I wouldn't tell him that.
So night two at Symphony Hall was baseball music. As someone who I think actually might have an addiction to the Boston Red Sox, I thought he'd love it. And he did, mostly.
For the first half of the concert, Pops conductor Keith Lockhart decided that we Red Sox fans needed to "eat our vegetables" and listen to a 20-minute Menndehlson violin piece before being allowed to hear "Take me Out to the Ballgame" and various baseball themes from Broadway.
I thought that was sort of paternalistic of him. Like "we'll let you listen to your populist music once you listen to music that's good for you."
The audience was confused. There they were, all decked out in their Red Sox jerseys waiting to hear "baseball music" - whatever that really is - and they had to listen to real symphony stuff. With movements and "false endings" and everything. Chuck sighed a lot. After all, their violin soloist was no Bernadette Peters in a sewn-on beaded gold dress.
Maybe Lockhart won some of them over and they'll become season ticket holders for Brahms, Mozart and more Mendehlson concerts. Maybe not. Luckily, the second half of the show was everything you'd imagine, including video screens of famous Red Sox moments and even big-screen fireworks and special effects.
I'm tempted to write Keith Lockhart an email to ask him about his paternalistic motives, but part of me thinks I needed a little broccoli with my mac 'n cheese.
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