Summer Outdoor Concert Season

It's been a so-so summer for outdoor concerts and Shakespeare in the Park. Hamlet was undistinguised and I didn't care about seeing Hair 40 years ago, so what does a revival matter? And while I'm at it, why is it that the greatest city in the world has no resident world-caliber Shakespeare venue? And why does the current director of Shakespeare in the Park, one Oskar Eustis, figure we need less of the greatest dramatist in the English language -- and perhaps any language, as an op-ed piece in the NYT noted a few weeks ago -- and more of everything else? As the song in Kiss Me, Kate goes he needs to brush up on his Shakespeare, both in doing more of it and, since he was the director of the Hamlet, staging it.

But for music, I've either missed (Flogging Molly), been out of town (Beth Orton) for some, or not much interested in most concerts. But I did catch The National and Bob Dylan on consecutive weeks at Central Park and Prospect Park. It took a while for The National to hit its stride, perhaps because -- as one band member said -- they woke up that morning in Cincinnati and would be in Norway the next day. On Abel, they missed the fine line between controlled pandemonium and over the top and a couple of the quieter songs seemed tossed off but once they did sync in, they sold me all over again, especially on Karen, Apartment Story, and Start A War. The songs all promise that a life gone askew ("You haven't seen my good side yet.") will get back on track ("I'll quit drinking/I'll be fun again.") It probably won't but the faith, however misplaced is what matters. In Central Park it was the kind of summer night that one dreams of in the middle of winter, warm, clear, low humidity, and even a few stars.

And at Prospect Park, the first time I can remember being there, another Olmstead and (I think) Vaux creation, I walked forever to find the Bandstand. After dark, the place feels as huge as Central Park, remote, and ill-served by the main subway lines. But I eventually got there just as Bob was kicking off with Rainy Day Women. Couldn't scrounge a ticket to get inside, so could only hear and, by standing on tiptoe and screwing my head about 165 degrees to the right, sometimes see Bob or some other band member on stage. Bob was Bob. Without the visual stimulus of seeing him, it sounded as if I'd heard better through the years (and I would just once like to be spared Masters of War and It's Alright, Ma) but the NYT review a couple days later raved and Bob was apparently more animated to the crowd than usual, using his fingers as six-shooters during the encore. He remains an applause slut, milking it forever before coming out for the encore and then, after leaving the stage for the last time, letting people cheer some more for an extended time in hopes of luring him back on, before finally after a couple minutes the house lights come up and we all go home.

Not getting a ticket did have its plusses, enabling me to see in the huge overflow crowd a three-legged dog, a guy dashing around waving his purple light saber, and a guy, saying "Coming through" or "hot coals," or "watch yourself," walking through the crowd -- and we are talking people nearly shoulder to shoulder -- with a lit Weber hoisted high over his head, the coals aflame. He walked right by a cop, who said nothing. Perhaps this is not unusual in the wilds of Brooklyn. Prospect Park had both more mosquitoes and more dogs than CP.