Starlight Concert Series: Moment's Notice

As I've said before, I particularly try to take advantage of all the cheap or free art and cultural activities we have in this area during the summer.  Last night we went to a concert of another free outdoors concert series--the Starlight Concerts held in the greens by the herb garden at the Page Walker Building here in Cary.

The Starlight Concerts are a set of eight free concerts that include a diverse set of music.  This year, the concerts will include bluegrass, classical, Middle Eastern, and Latin, among others.  They run from 7:00-9:00 PM, and people are welcome to bring chairs and picnic blankets and food and drink (but not alcohol, unfortunately--it is nice to enjoy some wine as you listen to the music).  And a particularly wonderful feature for us is that it is within walking distance from our house (although I wasn't thinking that was such an asset last night as I was pulling who know how many pounds of chairs and snacks and drinks for about a mile when the weather was still 84 degrees...not all uphill, but there were definitely hills).

But once we got there and settled in within a stone's throw of the performers, that all faded away and we were just glad to be there on a lovely summer's night.

The band was Moment's Notice from Raleigh, which is primarily a jazz band.  They played some jazz classics, like "Autumn Leaves" and "God Bless The Child" and some others that my two brothers who are jazz aficionados would probably recognize, but I didn't.  But they also did at least one blues number, and a latin jazz, and a couple of R&B numbers--Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," which I love, and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?".

Anyway, they were really good.  The crowd had some families, but it was mostly an older audience, and everyone was really appreciating the music.  The evening cooled off, the bugs stayed away, the birds seemed to be dancing in the air as they zipped around above the musicians, and the snacks tasted better accompanied by live music.  Our friend, the Hula Lady (she shows up at these concerts with bunches of huge hula hoops and stands by the side, hula-ing to the music, and eventually drawing over some other concert-goers who give the hulas a try) was gracefully rotating her colorful hulas on the sideline.  And I thought to myself, "This is just so nice.  What could be better than this?"

Almost immediately after I thought that, the band played their version of "It's a Wonderful World."  In that moment in time, I agreed 100%

Everyone was having such a good time that the band kept going past 9:00 (in part because some technical difficulties got they started late).  So the music didn't end until 9:30, which meant that we got to walk home with our tons of junk in the dark.  But it was worth it.  It was almost dark during the final song, but the Hula Lady has hulas that light up, and she created a rainbow to accompany the fireflies flitting across the darkness.