Tunes on Tuesday

Newberg has an outdoor concert series on Tuesday evenings on the library lawn. We walked over tonight. I would like to draw some comparisons between the Newberg event and those held in Centennial Park that I remember.

The temperature...while the rest of the country is sweltering, we barely made 70 degrees today with some pretty thick cloud cover (no rain, mind you.) People were sitting in lawn chairs drinking coffee (courtesy of Coyote Joe), wine by the glass and burgers. Most were dressed, as were we, in long sleeves.

The music...the style does not change much from week to week as I recall from last year. There are different acts each week, but basically they play the same type of music, which is type of folk/country with guitars, banjo or mandolin, keyboard, and of course, some type of drum. The front singer is frequently a woman who sounds like Joan Biaz. No big bands, chorales, or rock bands (again, that I remember.) The artists are good, don't get me wrong, here, I just recall them all sounding like the one we saw tonight.

The people...here lies another big difference. The people of Newberg are casual, very casual...lots of kids...lots of kids (playing on the swings, riding bikes, and running around.) The Holland audience did not have as many beards, or long gray hair (both men and women) as I recall. There are some people who look the same, of course (we were at both places), but there is something about each locality that marks it as different. It might be me, but Holland folk, even in casual attire, seem more formal.

Oh yes, one more thing. We know very few people at the concerts here, but come to think of it, we knew very few in Holland, too...just seemed like we did because we would always see LaMont Dirkse and Gord Kossen and a few others like that. While Newberg's diversity of races and cultures is not that dissimilar, statistically, from Holland there is one thing for sure. Newberg does not have very many blondes...at least natural blondes, I would guess.

Thanks for indulging my comparisons. Oh yes, I started a new blog.
The purpose is for me to express my opinion. It is titled: This is what I think...