Indigo Girls Concert 07/19/2000
Hi All,
Demaris and I went to the Indigo Girls concert yesterday evening. The
concert was held at the Cuthbert Auditorium in Alton Baker Park. Alton Baker
Park is the park located across the street from our apartment and stretches
along the River from the Autzen Stadium Bike bridge to the Ferry Street
Suspension Bike Bridge.
The one thing you won't see in the following shots of the Indigo Girls
Concert is any pictures of the Indigo Girls. That's because we never saw them.
You see, Cuthbert Auditorium isn't really an auditorium but an open air concert
hall located at a bulge in the Millrace (a large stream diverted from the river
to power mills in the 1800s - not used for this purpose in 100 years.) Most
cities when they have concerts in the park have them for free or a nominal fee.
Eugene however sets up a large fence around the stage (and the Millrace!?) and
charges $25-$30 (plus fasttix/ticketmaster fees) for tickets.
This is singularly ineffective in keeping people from hearing the
concert for free. Trying to fence in a river just doesn't work nor a large park
area. I strongly prefer the seats outside the auditorium to those inside.
There's just a lot more room to stretch and the sound volume isn't painful.
Besides we made a picnic of it and could bring our own food and drink (sweet
tea.)
We're not the only ones who do this. There are almost as many folks
outside as inside. What the fence does is create class strife and a general
feeling of disharmony. Eugene does this for their city celebrations too. It has
the same divisive results on the populace. It's not as strong as the feelings
of coach class vs. first class on an airplane but it's certainly felt.
As usual we spent a bunch of our time watching and listening. Just to
describe the folks on the inside of the fence: Abercrombe & Fitch.
As
to the composition of the folks outside the fence...we have pictures.
The concert itself was very nice, the Indigo Girls played all their old
hits from the 90s. I'm not up on my Indigo Girls but they sounded like they
always do. The crowd was pretty active. Now onto the pictures!
The path from our apartment to Cuthbert Ampitheatre. Early
evening.
More path.
This is where we sat for our picnic. Straight ahead is the
ampitheater, behind it are the paid attendees. We don't have a fence seperating
us from here as the Millrace provides a natural barrier. As you can also see
there are a good number of folks already picnicing & enjoying the warmup
band.
Another shot of our seating area.
A shot from where we spread out our blanket.
As promised here is a shot of one of the groups who attended the
concert outside the fence with us. One of the most entertaining groups are
people who have doggies (as they don't allow doggies in the ampitheatre.)
Directly behind us were three pups and their people.