A million years ago, steady misting rain falling on Cherokee Park, we were this close to Bush as they played.  The park is a stunning Olmstead design but a poor venue for a free concert of a popular rock band.  Running late to the show, my best friend and I hiked in the through the back trails to avoid the huge crowd and parking madness.  Entering the dale from that direction, through the trees, we were automatically backstage.  Slipping in between two covered rigs at stage right we arrived just they started to play.  Planets and stars aligned, as they often do when we are together, and Gavin Rossdale sang their entire set directly to us.  It struck me simultaneously how outrageously beautiful he was, how unbelievably close he was and how sincerely modest he was on stage.  He offers songs to the audience as though it were an honor for him to be asked to sing.  At the end of this recent video he again shows that shyness and gratitude for success.

It’s funny about serendipity, if all had gone as planned that day we would have been out in the very front of the stage.  Tightly packed, crowded behind the barricades, slipping in the mud like everyone else.  Later, cozy and dry at the Bristol, noshing on green chili wontons and homemade black bean soup we simply couldn’t believe our good fortune.  Today, aeons later, we still can’t.

(Note: My children contend this is an embellished or entirely fabricated account of that day’s events.  They are wrong and possibly jealous they were too young to attend.)