We travelled up to Santa Rosa to the Harmony Festival on Saturday to see Erykah Badu. The Harmony Festival is an annual three day event where aging hippies and new jack hippies come together for three days of music, camaraderie, a lot of weed and psychedelic ingestion, tribal dances, tons of new age vendors and some outstanding live music on several stages. The crowd was colorful and off the chain in their apparel choices and they kept us entertained as we walked around the Sonoma County Fairgrounds where the festival was held. We even got to see pop folk jazz chanteuse Rickie Lee Jones sing the last song of her set, and she looked and sounded terrific.
Erykah Badu is one of the finest singers, songwriters and performers we have working today, and she enthralled the crowd with a 90 minute set which opened with a new song, the anthemic "Hip Hop Is...," and continued on through career highlights like "On and On," a poignant "Other Side of the Game," a surprising "Green Eyes" and "Penitentiary Philosophy," a rousing old school hip hop medley ranging from Slick Rick to Grandmaster Flash, and including crowd pleasing turns on her hits, "Tyrone" and "Love of My Life." She came right into the audience and has us singing with her on "Bag Lady," and she held the microphone right in front of Lamarr as he sang along with her. Now that was a thrilling moment - the first collaboration between Skarlo Paine and Erykah Badu. Out of this world!
Unfortunately, minutes after leaving the parking lot enroute to the freeway, a teenager ran a red light and smashed into my silver Saturn, rendering it possibly totalled. Thank God for my sister Cathy, who lives in Santa Rosa, and came and got us, and the wonderful police officers who aided us, as well as the four (!!) witnesses who stayed to give statements backing us up. We'll need them as the kid is claiming his light was green, not ours. I remembered this morning to thank my Higher Power for this experience, even though it feels awful. I don't know where it is leading and I'm keeping faith.
Gratitude. Now that's a concept Erykah Badu would definitely agree with.
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