The City Parks Foundation is responsible for a number of free concerts and performances, one of them being SummerStage that takes place in Central Park and features a wide variety of music throughout the summer. My first visit was about a month ago and the featured attraction were the sounds of Brazil, but my next trip would focus on the reggae music from the island of Jamaica - celebrating their fiftieth year of independence, seemingly every weekend for the past ten weekends.
The actual stage for the SummerStage events are best accessible by entrance from the east side of the park, on 5th Ave and E. 67th St. For both show I went to the starting time was 3pm, and they start letting people a half hour before. The first time I didn't arrive until about 4pm and paid the price by having to wait on a very long line for about fifteen minutes to enter. There are bag searches, baby-stroller removals, and quick scans to prevent the bringing in alcohol beverages from the outside, that causes delays. Not wanting to have to go through that again, I arrived more promptly around the Three O-clock hour and waltzed right into the entrance without any wait. There are a few cops outside the barriers, and a line of portable-potties it seems like they're guarding too, but inside the area security is provided separately by the park foundation themselves. ID cards are checked are age, if you plan of buying alcohol inside, and in order to do so you need to receive a wrist band indicating your eligible. I turned out to be alcohol purchaser Number 63420. Once I got in the place was rather full, all the seats in the stands were taken, and there was only some room in the very back and on the side left to put down a blanket. The show had already started once I was inside and there were two Jamaican ladies on stage singing something I'm not quite sure I heard so clearly.
There's a few options for food and beverages, everything presented by way of concession stands for beer, wine, water, soda, gourmet hotdogs, falafel, pizza, and of course organic ice cream for dessert. If a bathroom is required, there's about eight portable-potties inside as well. I would've thought smoking was prohibited in such close confines that people are to each other, but cigarettes (and other items later to be discussed) were being ignited regularly without any objection from the security guards. I started off with a beer that was eight dollars, and to eat I went with something different than last time, a plain falafel. The cook behind the counter needed about ten seconds to grasp the concept I didn't want any lettuce, tomato, or mystery white sauce on it - just falafel balls on pita bread, that's it! The price for the sandwich (if it qualifies as a sandwich) was a modest six dollars only. When the first group was done with their performance and the crowd broke up a little, I took a peek at a stand alongside the left of the stage where it looked like people were signing up for something. Done with my falafel and a little curious what it was about, I headed on over to have a look for myself. I saw a sign for The Africa Channel and a gentleman working the stand told me they were trying to get cable subscribers from the New York area to sign a petition to have The Africa Channel brought to their homes. He told me the station is very similar to BBC America in that it would be a mix of news and original programming. Their hottest TV show is called "Jacob's Cross" and it deals with the diamond and mineral industry of South Africa. According to him, its like the American TV classic show (currently resurrected on TNT) "Dallas", except its about diamonds rather than oil, but its the same drama and bickering between rich people. It seemed interesting enough to me, so as a Cablevision customer I signed up as well to demand The Africa Channel be brought to my living room, and in doing so, I was given a free pen as a gift.
Feeling good about possibly having an addition cable station soon to flip onto and complain nothing good is on, I wanted to celebrate with a little organic ice cream I regretted not trying when I was there for the Brazilian concert. The company is called Bluemarble, and they use Virgil's Root Beer for their soda floats, which was a little pricey at eight dollars, but whatever. The next group to reach the stage was Israel Vibration, and as soon as I was finished with my soda float I started to study the crowd more closely. As one would expect, there were plenty of Jamaican people, and rastafarians sporting the usual attire of dreadlocks and rasta hats. There was one lady who looked like a character from Star Wars the way she had her extremely long hair wrapped above her head that towered over the entire audience. She could be spotted away from fifty yards easily. Then I noticed other audience members cupping something in their hands and taking little puffs of smoke. By the sight and scent of these puffs of smoke, they certainly weren't cigarettes. More or less the security people saw it, but they seemingly were letting it go by the wayside. With the police just outside by the exits, I was a little surprised people would be that bold. Plus, with a Jamaican reggae concert going on inside, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what might be going on, so I'm also surprised the police didn't have undercover officers inside making drug busts. They would've had a field day if they wanted to. It led me to believe that since it was a city function, the cops were briefed to allow whatever sinning to take place inside (as long as its not rampart), but just prevent any abuse throughout the rest of Central Park. Had it been a privately run concert somewhere else in the city, it probably would've been a totally different ballgame. It's funny how politics works sometimes and how perception shapes everything.
The last group that was headlining the show was none other than the "Bad Boys of Reggae", Inner Circle, who achieved alot of mainstream success in the US during the early 90's. They played quite a few songs, but the tunes I was most interested in were from their 1993 album Bad Boys. The first song was "Sweat (A La La La La Long)", which took me back to my junior high-school years as it seemed that song was playing every five seconds somewhere. The other hit sharing the same name as the album, "Bad Boys" which as far back as 1987 was adopted as the official theme song to the FOX TV show "COPS", still running in it's twenty-fourth season on air. With the "America's Most Wanted" set I stumbled onto in Washington DC back in June, and now with the live performance of the theme song to "COPS", I had now completed the FOX crime-fighting programming requisites. The show ended roughly about 6:30pm and by that time most of the food stands were out of stock. I began shuffling out of the exit and headed towards the east side of the park back to the subway to go home. On the way there I saw a nice mid-60's Ford Mustang in very good condition parked at a meter.There was weekend construction going on for uptown trains at the 68th St./Hunter College stop, as well as other stops further up, so I actually had to take a local train for one stop to 59th St. to finally catch a train heading uptown. Many other people from the concert also made their way to the same station and had the same idea I had and the train was quite crowded for a while.
It would've been much easier if someone just tossed me the keys to the Mustang....
The actual stage for the SummerStage events are best accessible by entrance from the east side of the park, on 5th Ave and E. 67th St. For both show I went to the starting time was 3pm, and they start letting people a half hour before. The first time I didn't arrive until about 4pm and paid the price by having to wait on a very long line for about fifteen minutes to enter. There are bag searches, baby-stroller removals, and quick scans to prevent the bringing in alcohol beverages from the outside, that causes delays. Not wanting to have to go through that again, I arrived more promptly around the Three O-clock hour and waltzed right into the entrance without any wait. There are a few cops outside the barriers, and a line of portable-potties it seems like they're guarding too, but inside the area security is provided separately by the park foundation themselves. ID cards are checked are age, if you plan of buying alcohol inside, and in order to do so you need to receive a wrist band indicating your eligible. I turned out to be alcohol purchaser Number 63420. Once I got in the place was rather full, all the seats in the stands were taken, and there was only some room in the very back and on the side left to put down a blanket. The show had already started once I was inside and there were two Jamaican ladies on stage singing something I'm not quite sure I heard so clearly.
There's a few options for food and beverages, everything presented by way of concession stands for beer, wine, water, soda, gourmet hotdogs, falafel, pizza, and of course organic ice cream for dessert. If a bathroom is required, there's about eight portable-potties inside as well. I would've thought smoking was prohibited in such close confines that people are to each other, but cigarettes (and other items later to be discussed) were being ignited regularly without any objection from the security guards. I started off with a beer that was eight dollars, and to eat I went with something different than last time, a plain falafel. The cook behind the counter needed about ten seconds to grasp the concept I didn't want any lettuce, tomato, or mystery white sauce on it - just falafel balls on pita bread, that's it! The price for the sandwich (if it qualifies as a sandwich) was a modest six dollars only. When the first group was done with their performance and the crowd broke up a little, I took a peek at a stand alongside the left of the stage where it looked like people were signing up for something. Done with my falafel and a little curious what it was about, I headed on over to have a look for myself. I saw a sign for The Africa Channel and a gentleman working the stand told me they were trying to get cable subscribers from the New York area to sign a petition to have The Africa Channel brought to their homes. He told me the station is very similar to BBC America in that it would be a mix of news and original programming. Their hottest TV show is called "Jacob's Cross" and it deals with the diamond and mineral industry of South Africa. According to him, its like the American TV classic show (currently resurrected on TNT) "Dallas", except its about diamonds rather than oil, but its the same drama and bickering between rich people. It seemed interesting enough to me, so as a Cablevision customer I signed up as well to demand The Africa Channel be brought to my living room, and in doing so, I was given a free pen as a gift.
Feeling good about possibly having an addition cable station soon to flip onto and complain nothing good is on, I wanted to celebrate with a little organic ice cream I regretted not trying when I was there for the Brazilian concert. The company is called Bluemarble, and they use Virgil's Root Beer for their soda floats, which was a little pricey at eight dollars, but whatever. The next group to reach the stage was Israel Vibration, and as soon as I was finished with my soda float I started to study the crowd more closely. As one would expect, there were plenty of Jamaican people, and rastafarians sporting the usual attire of dreadlocks and rasta hats. There was one lady who looked like a character from Star Wars the way she had her extremely long hair wrapped above her head that towered over the entire audience. She could be spotted away from fifty yards easily. Then I noticed other audience members cupping something in their hands and taking little puffs of smoke. By the sight and scent of these puffs of smoke, they certainly weren't cigarettes. More or less the security people saw it, but they seemingly were letting it go by the wayside. With the police just outside by the exits, I was a little surprised people would be that bold. Plus, with a Jamaican reggae concert going on inside, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what might be going on, so I'm also surprised the police didn't have undercover officers inside making drug busts. They would've had a field day if they wanted to. It led me to believe that since it was a city function, the cops were briefed to allow whatever sinning to take place inside (as long as its not rampart), but just prevent any abuse throughout the rest of Central Park. Had it been a privately run concert somewhere else in the city, it probably would've been a totally different ballgame. It's funny how politics works sometimes and how perception shapes everything.
The last group that was headlining the show was none other than the "Bad Boys of Reggae", Inner Circle, who achieved alot of mainstream success in the US during the early 90's. They played quite a few songs, but the tunes I was most interested in were from their 1993 album Bad Boys. The first song was "Sweat (A La La La La Long)", which took me back to my junior high-school years as it seemed that song was playing every five seconds somewhere. The other hit sharing the same name as the album, "Bad Boys" which as far back as 1987 was adopted as the official theme song to the FOX TV show "COPS", still running in it's twenty-fourth season on air. With the "America's Most Wanted" set I stumbled onto in Washington DC back in June, and now with the live performance of the theme song to "COPS", I had now completed the FOX crime-fighting programming requisites. The show ended roughly about 6:30pm and by that time most of the food stands were out of stock. I began shuffling out of the exit and headed towards the east side of the park back to the subway to go home. On the way there I saw a nice mid-60's Ford Mustang in very good condition parked at a meter.There was weekend construction going on for uptown trains at the 68th St./Hunter College stop, as well as other stops further up, so I actually had to take a local train for one stop to 59th St. to finally catch a train heading uptown. Many other people from the concert also made their way to the same station and had the same idea I had and the train was quite crowded for a while.
It would've been much easier if someone just tossed me the keys to the Mustang....
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