Three concerts in a week? Not bad. And what a diverse week of concerts they were. I did not ever picture myself seeing Smokey Robinson in concert but after the completion of the $85 million Rady Shell at Jacobs Park and the inaugural concert season that came along with it here I was. After Ingrid and I had walked past the Shell one afternoon we decided to check out who was slated to play there. Once we learned Smokey was going to be in the joint I decided to surprise Ingrid with tickets because why the hell not?
The Shell was built to be the summer home for the San Diego Symphony and the first ever event was only two weeks prior to this so it was pretty cool to have seen a concert during the venue’s infancy. There were concerts on this beautiful piece of land behind the convention center prior to the Shell but it was known as the Embarcadero and not half as cool. I once saw Radiohead there and had tickets for a White Stripes show that never happened.
After some sake, beer and sushi at Sushi Deli 3 we were ready. The first thing I noticed upon arrival were the nice built in benches just outside the venue for folks that wanted to hear the music but not pay for a seat. We had seen these benches when we initially walked by the venue but did not know how it would look/be regulated during an event.
After grabbling a full bottle of champagne (!) and a beer we grabbed our seats on the perfectly graded seating area. There is literally “not a bad seat in the house” but then again the venue only holds a maximum of 10,000 people. Smokey came out in a silver suit flanked by a full band and two female backup singers and proceeded to kill it for the next hour and a half. It was mind blowing and inspiring that an 81 year old could still perform at a level that high but clearly the guy has taken care of himself because he looks like 60 years old tops. I suspected this would be a show where I would know way more songs than I thought I knew and I was correct in my suspicions. Subconscious is a wonderful thing. It was especially cool to hear him do some famous Motown songs after learning he played a part in writing some of those hits. The impression he did of his good friend Stevie Wonder had the crowd rolling and the grand finale of “Crusin’“ replete with a lot of crowd participation and fireworks was also something that I will look back on fondly for the rest of my days.
