Carlos Santana

Late last summer the three of us went to see Carlos Santana in a concert in Concord. Concord Pavillion is home to hundreds of concerts every summer, where the audience sits in open air in Diablo Valley Canyon’s balmy and wonderful summer’s nights. We packed a picnic dinner and went. The age range of the audience was remarkable. There were white-haired grandmothers and grandfathers (the original Woodstockers!), and there were 10 and 12-year olds (that first group’s grandchildren, probably), and all the ages in between, walking about. Carlos Santana is an extraordinary artist who has been performing for over 40 years, delivering pure musical joy to his audiences. He is talented, charismatic, and generous, with liberal and peace-minded political views. Artistically, he keeps re-creating himself and his music to appeal to brand new audiences, while keeping the old ones continually mesmerized with itself. It goes without saying how good it felt to be able to go to this concert with my children. As he played Smooth, I wasn’t the only one to stand up on the lawn under the beautiful moonlight and stars of that September night, dancing the primitive and natural dance which Santana music invariably tricks all to do. I watched as the beautiful summer’s breeze tossed everyone’s clothing and hair around, long white hair in the middle of blond, brown, red, and black. Listen and tell me whether it moves you to dance, too. Photo by Ken Friedman from Carlos Santana’s Website: “Carlos shows his appreciation to the band at the concert in Concord for the hard work they have done by giving each a plaque.”