Live on The Levee

M

mwerner

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Apr 23, 2002
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St. Louis has scaled back it's big annual 4th of July bash, the Fair St. Louis.
(previously the VP fair) From it's glory-days as a three (or even four) day festival with air shows, live music, fireworks, local entertainment, and national-touring headliners, it's now a shadow of it's former self.

To make up for this, St. Louis and it's corporate sponsors are having Live On The Levee, a series of free live concerts run through the Summer. We've seen two of the shows this year:

Lyle Lovett. We first saw Lovett on PBS' Austin City Limits many years ago, and wondered who this guy with the great songs and wild hair was. Lyle put on a great show. No warm-up act, he played for 2 1/2 hours with a thirteen-piece orchestra and four backup singers. Trotted out a bunch of his hits, did bang-up Western Swing numbers, and even a couple of solo acoustic numbers. Great show.

Last night, we saw Kenny Wayne Shepard. This was an all-blues night, with openers from a local duo cranking out classic guitar-harmonica stuff, to a 3-piece band with a girl singer who was decent (but wanted to be Janis a bit too bad, we thought), and then to Shepard.
Heavily influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughn, the lad can play. He has a very clean technique, even under edge-of-feedback stuff. Lots of Vaughn's signature licks crop up in Shepard's playing, but he's no clone or copy guy.
With his dynamite lead singer, he cranked out an hour and a half of high-energy blues-rock, and finished up with a spot-on rendition of Voodoo Chile... Right before the fireworks.

These have been great shows, and we hope they repeat the thing next year.
 
I hope they repeat it for you, too. We have a lot of outdoor concerts in New York City.

I was walking home through Central Park one day, past the Great Lawn where they were about to hold a Paul Simon concert, and he was up on stage with his friends, going over some of what they were going to play.

Better even than the concert itself the next night! :D
 
Wow that sounds so good! I love Lyle Lovett and Kenny Wayne Sheppard and Paul Simon, we really rarely see entertainers like that at all because they don't seem to visit here. Paul McCartney did come to the University of South Carolinas Williams Brice football stadium for the Wings tour...he was fantastic but he sure didn't like the heat. "It's so hot here" Yah, we know!:D
 
One of my memories of my handful of St. Louis visits was a memorable trip there over the July 4th weekend. Had nice spot on the grassy hill overlooking the river where they shot off fireworks. Was witness to a massive gang fight... saw a monster 'roid-boy take on about 5-6 bangers and mess 'em up pretty good. Many other individual fights too. Cops came in and busted everything up. Quite exiting as we were far enough away to be spectators and not participants. Otherwise, too crowded, too hot, and too expensive. My other memories.... ice-storms or 100 degree heat with 100% humidity.:thumbdn: :barf: Kind of a skewed view of St. Louis, I think.;)

edited to add: the riot/brawl happened in the mid 80's, not this past July 4th.
 
For a while, when the fair was at it's peak, it was a little risky. The city laid on plenty of security, but they tended to congregate at the entrances, and dissapear entirely about the time the fireworks started. (probably heading out to the massive traffic-direction needed to clear the place.

However, for the last 10 years or so, the emphasis has been on "family friendly".

That meant no alchohol brought in (and very high prices for beer), fewer "rock" acts, and a larger security presence from the federal park police.

Since 9/11, also check-ins at the entrances and such. We havn't even seen anyone good and drunk for the last several years.
 
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