Festival on the Green

by chris cunningham

I was looking for something to do tonight after sitting inside all day working. So I thought I’d go over to the L.A. Arboretum and shoot some photos. Checked the website, they close at 5pm. It was 4:30. So that’s out. After searching around a bit I found out the California Philharmonic does outdoor concerts during the summer called Festival on the Green. And it’s tonight, and it’s at 7:30, and it’s at the Arboretum! What a weird coincidence. Tonight is all music from movies. Ah, excellent! I thought I’d actually try and see if anyone’s around and see if they might be up for this. Even if it is last minute and we had to leave right away. First call, sleeping. 2nd call, husband said she was asleep because she worked the night before, 3rd call, sister was in town and was asleep so couldn’t commit to going. How weird, I call three people and all can’t go because of sleeping. Why’s everyone asleep at 5pm on Saturday?

So I grabbed a blanket, went to the bank, ate dinner then headed over to the Arboretum where I discovered this thing is way more popular than I imagined. It was packed, but with room to grow. So, maybe I’ve been to too many rock concerts or something but unless you’re sitting right up next to the orchestra it’s never loud enough. As nice as it is, classical music doesn’t belong outdoors. It belongs in a perfectly tuned concert hall where the sound wraps around you and you can actually hear the horse hair scraping along a violin’s strings. That’s what sends chills down your spine. Not the theme from Lawrence of Arabia coming from one direction getting blown around by the slight breeze and some 20 year olds bored by it all and throwing a frisbee around in front of you. They were finally asked to stop by some event people. So two nights in a row I’ve been annoyed by people being idiots. The dry humpers last night at the movie and now the distracting frisbee throwers at the classical music concert. Why go out for entertainment? I’ve got Netflix, 50gb/34.6 days of music/12675 songs in my iTunes catalog, a refrigerator full of Guinness and Coronas, and every imaginable restaurant that will deliver right to my door.

The breakdown of the audience was all the rich folk up front and mostly over 50, and all the regular folk and young hipsters behind the castle moat in the back on the hill. See the pictures. There were peacocks running around through the crowd though. That was cool. Especially the part were the music would get all quiet and the peacocks would start squawking really loudly. That was funny. Another reason classical music belongs indoors. I don’t think you’d hear the peacocks squawking over Black Sabbath. It was nice out though. And there’s my completely random free association review of the Festival on the Green. Tomorrow, the Orange County fair and the Scorpions and UFO at Pacific Amphitheater. Rawk! Oh and Siggraph next Wednesday afternoon if you’re trying to assassinate me, or just plain avoid me.