Ravinia
We had our trips to Ravinia this week as planned, although didn’t get to see Shrek on the outdoor screen, as it rained quite a lot that day so we heard that they moved the screen to an indoor venue, and since we have the movie on DVD anyway, we decided there was no point in going.Our first Ravinia trip of the week was to see Aretha Franklin. We managed to park in their own car park (they also have several park and ride car parks scattered around the area), and took our picnic into the park. The concert was scheduled to start at 8pm, but we were there around 6.30 to get a good spot. Having only lawn tickets means you don’t get to see the stage, you have to pay quite a bit more for the seating area for that, but there were plenty of speakers around, and we could walk up to stand behind the seating area at any time to see her. At 8pm they announced there was a support group, which had not been mentioned in the programme but they were pretty good so we didn’t mind. But what we did mind was that when Aretha herself came on, she sang for only 30 minutes then had a break. Then in the 2nd half, she spent a lot of time talking rather than singing. Overall, there were a few songs I did not recognise, and in fact she did not perform many of her typical hits that you would expect at all.
The feeling that we had been somewhat short-changed by Ms Franklin was reinforced by the Tony Bennett concert at Ravinia a couple of days later. We turned up earlier as we hoped to get closer to the stage so we could go and see him without picking our way through hundreds of picnickers in the darkness, but as we queued for the main car park at 6pm, they closed the gates in front if us as it was full, so we were forced to use the nearest park and ride, which was actually within walking distance so was easy getting back afterwards, rather than wait with hundreds of others for the bus. The concert was sold out, and we had no hope of getting anywhere near the stage, so just had to find a good spot near the speakers. Again it was scheduled to start at 8pm, and this time there was no support group. He came straight on and performed for an hour and a half straight, with no break. And he sang all the songs you would expect. He was excellent. We managed to catch a few glimpses of him between the heads of others when we went up to take a look, but were thinking we might splash out for seats next year as apparently he performs every year there. I highly recommend seeing him. And, in fact, anything at Ravinia will be good as it is a lovely night out anyway.
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